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The Gates of Chance

by Van Tassel Sutphen · English · Gutenberg #3758 · 332,605 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Gates of Chance

Author: Van Tassel Sutphen


        
Release date: February 1, 2003 [eBook #3758]
                Most recently updated: January 8, 2021

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3758

Credits: Produced by Charles Franks, Robert Rowe, and the Online
        Distributed Proofreading Team. HTML version by Al Haines.


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GATES OF CHANCE ***




Produced by Charles Franks, Robert Rowe, and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team. HTML version by Al Haines.










The Gates of Chance


by

Van Tassel Sutphen



Contents

    I  THE GENTLEMAN'S VISITING-CARD
   II  THE RED DUCHESS
  III  HOUSE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE BLOCK
   IV  THE PRIVATE LETTER-BOX
    V  THE NINETY-AND-NINE KISSES
   VI  THE QUEEN OF SPADES
  VII  THE OPAL BUTTON
 VIII  THE TIP-TOP TIP
   IX  THE BRASS BAGGAGE-CHECK
    X  THE UPSET APPLE-CART
   XI  THE PHILADELPHIA QUIZZING-GLASS
  XII  THE ADJUSTER OF AVERAGES




I

The Gentleman's Visiting-Card


The card that had been thrust into my hand had pencilled upon it, "Call
at 4020 Madison Avenue at a quarter before eight this evening." Below,
in copper-plate, was engraved the name, Mr. Esper Indiman.

It was one of those abnormally springlike days that New York sometimes
experiences at the latter end of March, days when negligee shirts and
last summer's straw hats make a sporadic appearance, and bucolic
weather prophets write letters to the afternoon papers abusing the
sun-spots. Really, it was hot, and I was anxious to get out of the dust
and glare; it would be cool at the club, and I intended dining there.
The time was half-past six, the height of the homeward rush hours, and,
as usual, there was a jam of vehicles and pedestrians at the Fourth
Avenue and Twenty-third Street crossing. The subway contractors were
still at work here, and the available street space was choked with
their stagings and temporary footwalks. The inevitable consequent was
congestion; here were two of the principal thoroughfares of the city
crossing each other at right angles, and with hardly enough room, at
the point of intersection, for the traffic of one. The confusion grew
worse as the policemen and signalmen stationed at the crossing
occasionally lost their heads; every now and then a new block would
form, and several minutes would elapse before it could be broken. In
all directions long lines of yellow electric cars stood stalled, the
impatient passengers looking ahead to discover the cause of the
trouble. A familiar enough experience to the modern New-Yorker, yet it
never fails to exasperate him afresh.

The impasse looked hopeless when I reached the scene. A truck loaded
with bales of burlap was on the point of breaking down at the crossing,
and it was a question of how to get it out of the way in the shortest
possible time consistent with the avoidance of the threatened
catastrophe. Meanwhile, the jam of cars and trucks kept piling up until
there was hardly space for a newsboy to worm his way from one curb to
another, and the crowd on the street corners began to grow restive.
They do these things so much better in London.

Now, I detest being in the mob, and I was about to back my way out of
the crowd and seek another route, even if a roundabout one. But just
then the blockade was partially raised, an opening presented itself
immediately in front of me, and I was forced forward willy-nilly.
Arrived at the other side of the street, I drew out of the press as
quickly as possible, and it was then that I discovered Mr. Indiman's
carte de visite tightly clutched in my left hand. Impossible to
conjecture how it had come there, and my own part in the transaction
had been purely involuntary; the muscles of the palm had closed
unconsciously upon the object presented to it, just as does a baby's.
"Mr. Esper Indiman--and who the deuce may he be?"

The club dining-room was full, but Jeckley hailed me and offered me a
seat at his table. I loathe Jeckley, and so I explained politely that I
was waiting for a friend, and should not dine until later.

"Well, then, have a cocktail while I am finishing my coffee," persisted
the beast, and I was obliged to comply.

"I had to feed rather earlier than usual," explained Jeckley.

"Yes," I said, not caring in the least about Mr. Jeckley's hours for
meals.

"You see I'm doing the opening at the Globe to-night, and I must get my
Wall Street copy to the office before the theatre. And what do you
think of that by way of an extra assignment?" He took a card from his
pocket-book and tossed it over. It was another one of Mr. Esper
Indiman's calling-cards, and scrawled in pencil, "Call at 4020 Madison
Avenue at eight o'clock this evening."

Jeckley was lighting his cigar, and so did not observe my start of
surprise. Have I said that Jeckley was a newspaper man? One of the new
school of journalism, a creature who would stick at nothing in the
manufacture of a sensation. The Scare-Head is his god, and he holds
nothing else sacred in heaven and earth. He would sacrifice--but
perhaps I'm unjust to Jeckley; maybe it's only his bounce and flourish
that I detest. Furthermore, I'm a little afraid of him; I don't want to
be written up.

"Esper Indiman," I read aloud. "Don't know him."

"Ever heard the name?" asked Jeckley.

I temporized. "It's unfamiliar, certainly."

Jeckley looked gloomy. "Nobody seems to know him," he said. "And the
name isn't to be found in the directory, telephone-book, or social
register."

Wonderful fellows, these newspaper men; I never should have thought of
going for Mr. Indiman like that.

"But why and wherefore?" I asked, cautiously.

"A mystery, my son. The card was shoved into my hand not half an hour
ago."

"Where?"

"At Twenty-third and Fourth. There were a lot of people around, and I
haven't the most distant notion of the guilty party."

"What does it mean?"

Jeckley shook his head. "What will you do about it?"

"I will make the call, of course."

"Of course!"

"There maybe a story there--who knows. Besides, it's directly on my way
to the Globe, and the curtain is not until eight-thirty. Tell you what,
old man; come along with me and see the thing to a finish. Fate leads a
card--Mr. Esper Indiman's--and we'll play the second hand; what do you
say?"

I declined firmly. God forbid that I should be featured, along with the
other exhibits in the case, on the first page of to-morrow's Planet.

"So," he assented, indifferently, and pushed his chair back. "Well, I
must push along--Lord! there's that copy--the old man will have it in
for me good and plenty if I don't get it down in time. Adios!" He
disappeared, and I let him depart willingly enough. Later on I went up
to the library for a smoke--no fear of encountering any Jeckleys there,
and, in fact, the room was entirely deserted. I looked at my watch; it
was ten minutes after seven, and that gave me a quarter of an hour in
which to think it over. Should I accept Mr. Indiman's invitation to
call?

I looked around for an ash-tray, and, seeing one on the big
writing-table in the centre of the room, I walked over to it.

There were some bits of white lying in the otherwise empty tray--the
fragments of a torn-up visiting-card. A portion of the engraved script
caught my eye, "Indi--"

It was not difficult to piece together the bits of pasteboard, for I
knew pretty well what I should find. Completed, the puzzle read, "Mr.
Esper Indiman," and in pencil, "Call at 4020 Madison Avenue at
half-past seven this evening."

So there were three of us--if not more. Rather absurd this assignment
of a separate quarter of an hour to each interview--quite as though Mr.
Indiman desired to engage a valet and we were candidates for the
position. Evidently, an eccentric person, but it's a queer world
anyhow, as most of us know. There's my own case, for example. I'm
supposed to be a gentleman of leisure and means. Leisure, certainly,
but the means are slender enough, and proceeding in a diminishing
ratio. That's the penalty of having been born a rich man's son and
educated chiefly in the arts of riding off at polo and thrashing a
single-sticker to windward in a Cape Cod squall. But I sha'n't say a
word against the governor, God bless him! He gave me what I thought I
wanted, and it wasn't his fault that an insignificant blood-clot should
beat him out on that day of days--the corner in "R. P." It was never
the Chicago crowd that could have downed him--I'm glad to remember that.

Well, there being only the two of us, it didn't matter so much; it
wasn't as though there were a lot of helpless womenfolk to consider.
After the funeral and the settlement with the creditors there was
left--I'm ashamed to say how little, and, anyway, it's no one's
business; the debts were paid. What is a man to do, at thirty-odd, who
has never turned his hand to anything of use? The governor's friends?
Well, they didn't know how bad things were, and I couldn't go to them
with the truth and make them a present of my helpless, incompetent self.

And so for the last two years I've been sticking it out in a hall
bedroom, just west of the dead-line. I have a life membership in the
club--what a Christmas present that has turned out to be!--and twice in
the week I dine there. As for the rest of it, never mind--there are
things which a man can do but of which he doesn't care to speak.

The future? Ah, you can answer that question quite as well as I. Now I
had calculated that, at my present rate of expenditure, I could hold
out until Easter, but there have been contingencies. To illustrate, I
had my pocket picked yesterday morning. Amusing--isn't it?--that it
should have been my pocket--my pocket!

Fortunately I have stacks of clothes and some good pearl shirt-studs,
and I continue to present a respectable appearance. I shall always do
that, I think. I don't like the idea of the pawn-shop and the dropping
down one degree at a time. If, in the end, it shall be shown clearly
that the line is to be crossed, I shall walk over it quietly and as a
man should; I object to the indecency of being dragged or carried
across. What line do I mean? I don't know that I could tell you
clearly. What is in your own mind? There IS a line.

At half after seven I left the club, and exactly a quarter of an hour
later I stood opposite the doorway of No. 4020 Madison Avenue. A tall
man was descending the steps; I recognized Bingham, a member of my
club, and recalled the torn-up visiting-card that I had found in the
library. So Bingham was one of us.

Now I don't know Bingham, except by sight, and I shouldn't have cared
to stop and question him, anyway. But I caught one glimpse of his face
as he hurried away, and it looked gray under the electrics. Call it the
effect of the arc light, if you like; he was hurrying, certainly, and
it struck me that it was because he was anxious to get away.

Many are the motives that send men into adventurous situations, but
there is at least one among them that is compelling--hunger. I have
said that I had gone to the club for dinner; I did not say that I got
it. To be honest, I had hoped for an invitation--charity, if you insist
upon it. But I had been unfortunate. None of my particular friends had
chanced to be around, and Jeckley's cocktail had been the only
hospitality proffered me. You remember that my pocket had been picked
yesterday morning, and since then--well, I had eaten nothing. I might
have signed the dinner check, you say. Quite true, but I shall probably
be as penniless on the first of the month as I am to-day, and then
what? Too much like helping one's self from a friend's pocket.

So it was just a blind, primeval impulse that urged me on. This Mr.
Indiman had chosen to fish in muddy waters, and his rashness but
matched my necessity. A host must expect to entertain his guests. I
walked up the steps and rang the bell.

Instantly the door opened, and a most respectable looking serving-man
confronted me.

"Mr. Indiman will see you presently," he said, before I had a chance to
get out a word. "This way, sir."

The house was of the modern American basement type, and I was ushered
into a small reception-room on the right of the entrance hall. "Will
you have the Post, sir? Or any of the illustrated papers? Just as you
please, sir; thank you."

The man withdrew, and I sat looking listlessly about me, for the room,
while handsomely furnished, had an appearance entirely commonplace.

Five and ten minutes passed, and I began to grow impatient. I
remembered that Jeckley's appointment had been for eight o'clock, and
for obvious considerations I did not wish that he should find me
waiting here. It was eight o'clock now, and I would abide Mr. Indiman's
lordly pleasure no longer. I rose to go; the electric bell sounded.

I could hear Jeckley's high-pitched voice distinctly; he seemed to be
put out about something; he spoke impatiently, even angrily.

"But this is 4020 Madison Avenue, isn't it? Mr. Indiman--I was asked to
call--Mr. Jeckley, of the Planet."

"Must be some mistake, sir," came the answer. "This is No. 4020, but
there's no Mr. Inkerman--"

"Indiman, not Inkerman--Mr. Esper Indiman. Look at the card."

"Never heard the name, sir."

"What! Well, then, who does live here?"

"Mr. Snell, sir. Mr. Ambrose Johnson Snell. But he's at dinner, and I
couldn't disturb him."

"Humph!" I fancy that Jeckley swore under his breath as he turned to
go. Then the outer door was closed upon him.

It was a relief, of course, to be spared the infliction of Mr.
Jeckley's society, but I could not but admit that the situation was
developing some peculiarities. Eliminating the doubtful personality of
Mr. Ambrose Johnson Snell, who was this Mr. Esper Indiman, whose
identity had been so freely admitted to me and so explicitly denied to
Jeckley? The inference was obvious that Jeckley had failed to pass the
first inspection test, and so had been turned down without further
ceremony. This reflection rather amused me; I forgot about the
incivility to which I was being subjected in the long wait, and began
to be curious about the game itself. What next?

At a quarter after eight, and then again at half after, there were
inquiries at the door for Mr. Indiman. To each caller the answer was
returned that no Mr. Indiman was known at No. 4020 Madison Avenue, and
that Mr. Ambrose Johnson Snell could not be disturbed at his dinner.

There was no caller at the next quarter, and none again at nine
o'clock. The series had, therefore, come to an end, and I remained the
sole survivor--of and for what?

I dare say that my nerves had been somewhat weakened by my two days'
fast, or else it was the effect of Jeckley's cocktail on an otherwise
empty stomach. Whatever the cause, I suddenly became conscious that I
was passing into a state of high mental tension; I wanted to scream, to
beat impotently upon the air; Jeckley would have put it that I was
within an ace of flying off the handle.

A deafening clash of clanging metal smote my ears. It should have been
the finishing touch, and it was, but not after the fashion that might
have been expected. As though by magic, the horrible tension relaxed;
my nerves again took command of the situation; I felt as cool and
collected as at any previous moment in my life.

In the centre of the room stood a heavy table of some East-Indian
wood--teak, I think, they call it. I could have sworn that there was
nothing whatever upon this table when I entered the room; now I saw
three objects lying there. I walked up and examined them. As they lay
towards me, the first was a ten-thousand-dollar bill, the second a
loaded revolver, caliber .44, the third an envelope of heavy white
paper directed to me, Winston Thorp. The letter was brief and formal;
it read:

"Mr. Indiman presents his compliments to Mr. Thorp and requests the
honor of his company at dinner, Tuesday, March the thirtieth, at nine
o'clock.

"4020 Madison Avenue."

Dishonor, death, and dinner--a curious trio to choose between. Yet to a
man in my present position each of them appealed in its own way, and
I'm not ashamed to confess it. Perhaps the choice I made may seem
inevitable, but what if you had seen Bingham's face as I did, with the
arc light full upon it? It was the remembrance of that which made me
hesitate; twice I drew my hand away and looked at the money and the
pistol.

Through the open door came a ravishing odor, that of a filet a la
Chateaubriand; the purely animal instincts reasserted themselves, and I
picked up the gardenia blossom that lay beside the letter and stuck it
into the button-hole of my dinner-jacket. I looked down at the table,
and it seemed to me that the ten-thousand-dollar note and the pistol
had disappeared. But what of that, what did anything matter now; I was
going to dine--to dine!

I walked up-stairs, guided by that delicious, that heavenly odor, and
entered the dining-room in the rear, without the smallest hesitation.
At one end of the table sat a man of perhaps forty years of age. An
agreeable face, for all of the tired droop about the mouth and the deep
lines in the forehead; it could light up, too, upon occasion, as I was
soon to discover. For the present I did not bother myself with
profitless conjectures; that entrancing filet, displayed in a massive
silver cover, stood before him; I could not take my eyes from it.

My host, for such he evidently was, rose and bowed with great
politeness.

"You must pardon me," he said, "for sitting down; but, as my note said,
I dine at nine. I will have the shell-fish and soup brought on."

"I should prefer to begin with the filet," I said, decidedly.

A servant brought me a plate; my hand trembled, but I succeeded in
helping myself without spilling the precious sauce; I ate.

"There are three conditions of men who might be expected to accept the
kind of invitation which has brought me the honor of your company,"
remarked my host as we lit our cigarettes over the Roman punch. "To
particularize, there is the curious impertinent, the merely foolish
person, and the man in extremis rerum. Now I have no liking for the
dog-faced breed, as Homer would put it, and neither do I suffer fools
gladly. At least, one of the latter is not likely to bother me again."
He smiled grimly, and I thought of Bingham's face of terror.

"I found my desperate man in you, my dear Mr. Thorp, shall we drink to
our better acquaintance?" I bowed, and we drank.

"The precise nature of your misfortune does not concern me," he
continued, airily. "It is sufficient that we are of the same mind in
our attitude towards the world--'to shake with Destiny for beers,' is
it not?

"One may meet with many things on the highway of life--poverty,
disease, sorrow, treacheries. These are disagreeable, I admit, but they
are positive; one may overcome or, at least, forget them. But suppose
you stand confronting the negative of existence; the highway is clear,
indeed, but how interminable its vista, its straight, smooth, and
intolerably level stretch. That road is mine.

"Yes; I have tried the by-paths. Once I was shanghaied; twice I have
been marooned and by my own men. That last amused me--a little. I was
the second man to arrive at Bordeaux in the Paris-Madrid race of 1903;
during the Spanish-American war I acted as a spy for the United States
government in Barcelona.

"I made the common mistake of confounding the unusual with the
interesting. Romance is a shy bird, and not to be hunted with a brass
band. Where is the heart of life, if not at one's elbow? At the
farthest, one has only to turn the corner of the street. It is useless
to look for prodigies in the abyss, but every stream has its straws
that float; I have determined to watch and follow them.

"I want a companion, and so I advertised after my own fashion. I
selected you, tentatively, from the mob; later on I made the test more
complete. But you have no boutonniere; allow me."

He took a spray of orchid from the silver bowl in the centre of the
table and handed it to me.

I protested: "I have my gardenia--" I looked at my button-hole and it
was gone.

Mr. Indiman smiled. "Let me confess," he said. "You recall the abnormal
tension of your nerves as you sat waiting in my reception-room. Merely
the effect produced by a mixture of certain chemical gases turned on
from a tap under my hand. Then the crash of a brazen gong; it is what
the scientists call 'massive stimulation,' resolving super-excitation
into partial hypnosis.

"Once I had you in the hypnotic condition, the rest was simple enough.
I had only to suggest to your mind the three objects on the table, and
you saw them. The bank-note, the revolver--they were as immaterial as
the gardenia that no longer adorns your button-hole.

"I did not attempt to influence your choice among the three, as that
would have destroyed the value of the test to me. But, as I had hoped,
you accepted my invitation to dinner. Frankly, now, I am curious--why?"

"That is very simple," I answered. "I had not eaten anything for two
days, and I detected the odor of that exquisite filet. Not the
slightest ethical significance in the choice, as you see."

Esper Indiman laughed. "I should have kept my pantry door closed. But
it does not matter; I am satisfied. Shall we go into the library for
coffee?"

Directly opposite the door of the latter apartment stood an easel
holding an unframed canvas. A remarkable portrait--little as I know
about pictures, I could see that clearly enough. A three-quarter length
of a woman wearing a ducal coronet and dressed in a magnificent costume
of red velvet.

"Lely's 'Red Duchess,'" remarks my host, carelessly. "You may have seen
it in the Hermitage at Petersburg."

I looked at the picture again. Why should this masterpiece not have
been properly mounted and glazed? The edges of the canvas were jagged
and uneven, as though it had been cut from its frame with a not
oversharp knife. We sat down to our coffee and liqueurs.

As I awake in the narrow quarters of my hall bedroom I am inclined to
believe that the occurrences of the preceding night were only the
phantasms of a disordered digestion; where had I eaten that Welsh
rabbit? The morning paper had been thrown over the transom, and,
following my usual custom, I reached for it and began reading. Among
the foreign despatches I note this paragraph dated St. Petersburg:

"The famous portrait of the Duchess of Lackshire, by Sir Peter Lely,
better known as the 'Red Duchess,' has disappeared from the gallery of
the Hermitage. It is now admitted that it must have been stolen, cut
bodily from its frame and carried away. The theft took place several
months ago, but the secret has just become public property. The absence
of the picture from its accustomed place had, of course, been noted,
but it was understood that it had been removed for cleaning. An
enormous reward is to be offered for information leading to its
recovery."

There is also a letter for me which I had not noticed until now. It was
from Indiman, and it read:

"Dear Thorp,--Dine with me to-night at half after eight. I noticed that
you were rather taken with my 'Red Duchess'; we will ask the lady to
preside over our modest repast, and you can then gaze your fill upon
her. Faithfully, E. I."

Of course, I intend to accept the invitation.




II

The Red Duchess


At half after eight we sat down to dinner. Indiman, of course, took the
head of the table, and opposite him, propped up on the arms of an
enormous "bishop's chair" of Flemish oak, was Lely's portrait of the
"Red Duchess." What a glorious picture it was, in the masterly sweep of
its lines, in the splendor of its incomparable coloring! The jagged
edges of the canvas showed plainly where the vandal knife had passed,
separating the painting from its frame. But the really big thing is
always independent of its cadre; one hardly noticed the mutilation, and
then immediately forgot about it.

I had been honored with a seat at the lady's right hand, and opposite
me a fourth cover had been laid. Indiman noticed my look of inquiry.

"Only one of my fancies," he explained, smiling. "I always make
provision for the unexpected guest. Who knows what supperless angels
may be hovering around?"

We were hardly at the soup before a servant brought in a card.

"Roger W. Blake," read Indiman, aloud. "An honest-enough-sounding name.
Is the gentleman in evening dress, Bolder?"

"No, sir; I don't think so, sir."

"Hym! That is unfortunate. Still, if Madame la Duchesse will permit,
and you, Thorp, have no objection--Good! Ask Mr. Blake to do me the
favor of joining us at dinner."

A few minutes later Mr. Roger Blake appeared at the door of the
dining-room. He was a young man with a profusion of fair hair and a
good deal of color, the latter heightened considerably by the somewhat
embarrassing circumstances attending his introduction. But Indiman
relieved the situation immediately, going forward and greeting the new
guest with unaffected cordiality.

"Mr. Blake, is it? You are very heartily welcome, I assure you. Let
Bolder take your hat and stick; indeed, I insist upon it. Allow me now
to present you: Her Grace the Duchess of Lackshire, more generally
known as Lely's 'Red Duchess'--Mr. Roger W. Blake. My friend, Mr.
Thorp--Mr. Blake."

Evidently the young man was not overclear in his own mind as to how it
had all happened, but there he was, sitting bolt upright in the vacant
chair and drinking two glasses of wine in rapid succession to cover his
confusion. A comedy, apparently, but to what purpose? Mr. Blake blushed
painfully, and made no reply to the polite commonplaces that I
ventured; Indiman smiled benevolently upon both of us, and in the most
natural possible manner led the conversation to the subject of
portrait-painting. There was his text before him--the famous "Red
Duchess"--and he talked well. I found myself listening with absorbed
attention, and even the shy Mr. Blake became oblivious of the keener
agonies of self-consciousness. So we went on until the game course had
been removed.

Our host rose to his feet, champagne glass in hand. "Gentlemen," he
said, and we followed his example, Blake managing to upset a decanter
of sherry in the process, "in life and in art--the fairest of her sex.
I give you, gentlemen, 'La Duchesse Rouge.'"

The toast was drunk with becoming decorum. I was about to resume my
seat when I saw that Mr. Blake had screwed himself up to a desperate
decision, and that the climax of the drama was at hand. He was quite
pale, and he stuttered a little as he spoke.

"Very sorry, I--I'm sure," he blurted out, "but you are Mr. In-Indiman?"

"I am, and not in the least sorry for it. Go on."

"It is my d-duty, sir, to place you under arrest for complicity in the
theft of that p-p-picture." Mr. Blake threw back his coat and displayed
a detective's shield attached to an aggressively red suspender brace.

Esper Indiman bowed ironically. "I presume that my presence at Police
Headquarters is necessary?" he inquired.

"Yes, sir. I have a coach in waiting outside, and we will start at
once, if you please." Mr. Blake, under the stimulus of his professional
functions, lost his embarrassed air and became severely business-like
and official. "This gentleman will have to accompany us," he continued,
looking at me.

"The coffee, Bolder," called our host, "and never mind the sweets." I
drank a demi-tasse and lit a cigarette. "Ready," announced Indiman, and
we descended to the coach, Mr. Blake bringing up the rear and carrying
the precious picture enveloped in a silken table-cover.

"What reward is offered, officer?" asked Indiman as the carriage drove
off.

"One hundred thousand dollars, sir. It will be a big thing for me
if--if--" He stopped, a trifle embarrassed.

"Ah, those ifs!" quoted Indiman, musingly.

The chief of the detective bureau received us in his private room. He
listened attentively to Blake's report, but seemed rather puzzled than
gratified by its triumphant peroration. Now the young man felt that he
had done a big thing, and this non-committal attitude of his superior
chagrined him. He unrolled the covering in which the picture had been
wrapped.

"There!" he said, half resentfully. The chief looked carefully at the
picture and turned to Indiman.

"Do you desire to make any explanation, Mr. Indiman, as to how this
picture happens to be in your possession?"

"Certainly," was the prompt reply. "I bought it for a small sum a month
ago on the lower Bowery. The dealer's name was Gregory, I think."

Young Mr. Blake sniffed incredulously. A messenger handed a couple of
telegrams to the chief. He read them with knitted brows and then
touched a call-bell.

"Send in Officer Stone," he ordered.

Mr. Stone immediately made his appearance. In his hand he carried a
flat, square parcel which, in obedience to a further order, he
proceeded to unwrap. I uttered an involuntary cry, for it was nothing
less than a replica of the famous portrait of the "Red Duchess." A
replica, indeed!--it would take an expert to decide which of the two
was the copy; they were absolutely alike, even to the detail of the
rough edges, the marks of the blunted knife.

"This picture was discovered in an art dealer's window on Fourth Avenue
near Twenty-ninth Street," explained the chief of the detective bureau.
"And now kindly listen to these despatches. The first from the chief of
police of New Orleans:

"'Lely portrait discovered in pawn-shop. Officer Smith goes North
to-night to return property and claim reward. J. H. BOWEN."

The other from Pittsburg, in substantially the same language, reports
the finding of the portrait of the 'Red Duchess' in a private gallery.
This fourth picture is also on its way to New York for identification."

We all looked at one another, Blake the picture of puzzled anger and
disappointment. "Which is the true picture?" asked the chief. "Mr.
Indiman, I should be glad of your opinion."

Indiman, who had been examining the canvas held by Stone, answered
quickly: "Neither of these, and it is more than probable that the other
two are also copies by the same hand. Wonderfully well done, too, but
the study of portraiture is a hobby of mine; I have even contemplated a
monograph on the subject, or, more particularly, a hand-book to the
smaller galleries and private collections. But I doubt if I ever do it
now," he concluded, meditatively.

"The 'Red Duchess'?" persisted the chief.

"Of course, I know it perfectly. I won't bore you with technical
explanations, but on the back of the stretcher is the address of the
American art dealer from whom the original canvas was purchased. That
should be enough."

It was as Indiman said; each of the canvas stretchers carried a small
gummed label, the address of a Fulton Street art-supply shop.

"That settles the question," remarked the chief of detectives. "I may
say finally that I have this cable from the Minister of Police at St.
Petersburg, communicated to me through the Russian Consul-General:


"'Lely portrait recovered and replaced in the gallery at the Hermitage.
Withdraw published reward.

"'(Signed) SOBRIESKA.'


"A queer piece of business; but this appears to be the end of it,"
commented the chief. "Needless to say, gentlemen, that you are at
liberty to depart. My apologies for the annoyance to which you have
been subjected."

We all bowed and withdrew to the anteroom. Blake, blushing redly, came
up to Indiman; he began to apologize, stuttering pitiably, but Indiman
cut him short.

"Call up the coach and offer the driver extra fare for the best time
his horses can make to this address." He scribbled the name of the
street and the house number on a leaf torn from his note-book and
handed it to Blake. "Yes, you can come along if you like; it may be the
big thing yet."

As the carriage rolled along Indiman vouchsafed certain explanations.

"As I have already told you," he began, "I bought the picture from a
small dealer in the Bowery. I happened to notice it in his window, and,
the 'Red Duchess' being one of the half-dozen superlative portraits of
the world, I was naturally interested. It was certainly a fine copy,
and I was pleased to get it so cheaply.

"Now there were two or three circumstances connected with my find that
afterwards struck me as peculiar. In the first place it is well known
that permission to copy any of the pictures at the Hermitage Gallery is
very rarely given, and the authorities are particularly averse to
having reproductions made of the Lely portrait. Secondly, why were the
edges of the canvas so curiously serrated, giving the picture the look
of having been hastily cut away from its frame? And, finally, where and
when had this copy been made? for the label of the Fulton Street art
dealer on the back bore the date 1903, and this was the 2d of February
in the same year. Obviously impossible that the artist could have gone
to Russia, painted the picture, and returned with it to New York in a
little over a month.

"Two days later I was walking up Fourth Avenue, through the district
affected by the curio and old-furniture dealers, and I discovered a
replica of my 'Red Duchess' hanging in a shop-window. In every respect
identical, you understand, the two pictures were unquestionably the
work of the same hand. Whose hand?

"Do you remember, Thorp, the name of Clive Richmond? Well, for a year
or two he was the favorite painter of women's portraits here in New
York, hailed as genius and all that. Then suddenly his work began to
fall off in quality; his failures became egregious, and his clients
left him. Shortly after he disappeared; it was the common report that
his misfortunes had affected his reason; there were even hints at
suicide. That was some four or five years ago, and whatever the secret
may be it has been kept faithfully.

"At least I had solved a portion of the problem--it was Clive Richmond
and no other who had painted my copy of the 'Red Duchess.' How do I
know? Well, with the expert it is a matter partly technical but more
largely intuitive. How do you recognize a friend's face? How does the
bank clerk detect the counterfeit bill?

"Now this second copy bore the same ear-marks as the one in my
possession--the edges of the canvas marred and jagged, the Fulton
Street label on the back. What was this mystery?

"Mystery--yes, and behind it the shadow of a crime, of a human tragedy.
Who was to lift the veil? There was but one man--Clive Richmond--who
could answer my question; and where was Clive Richmond? A week later I
found still a third copy of my 'Duchess' over on Sixth Avenue. I had
left my purse at home that morning, and when I went back the next day
to buy the picture it was gone--sold to a stranger. Did I say that I
had missed getting possession of the second picture through the same
sort of contretemps? I never saw either of them again.

"I had written to a friend in Petersburg to make certain inquiries for
me, and his answer confirmed my suspicions. The 'Red Duchess' was not
hanging in its accustomed place at the Hermitage; it was in process of
renovation, according to a statement made by the director of the
gallery.

"That was enough for me. The portrait had been stolen and was probably
in New York at this very moment. Where? Let me first find Clive
Richmond, and I must be quick about it, for once the secret of the
theft got out the detectives would not be long in rounding up the
various purchasers of those wonderfully accurate copies. This morning
the cable brought the news, and at dinner-time Mr. Blake's card was
presented to me. Quick work, Mr. Blake; I congratulate you.

"Here is the letter that I received just before we left my house; you
remember that it had come in the evening mail and been overlooked. I
will read it.


"'DEAR INDIMAN,--There's more in the art business than can be squeezed
out of a color tube, isn't there? But I have the secret now; it was
given me by Lely himself--no less. What a pity it is that I shan't have
the chance to use it, but you and the cognoscenti can fight it out
together. You might bury me decently if you like; you ought to be
willing to do that much, seeing that your critical pronouncements have
been so amply vindicated.

C. R.

"'P. S.--My secret? But on second thought I will take it with me.'"


St. John's Park and the streets fronting upon it was once a fashionable
quarter of the town. Now a hideous railway freight station occupies the
former park area, and the old-time residences, with their curiously
wrought-iron stoop-railings and graceful fan-lights, have been degraded
to the base uses of a tenement population. Only the quaint chapel of
St. John has survived the slow process of contamination, a single rock
rising above the sordid tide.

The coach stopped before one of the most pretentious of the old-time
houses-now, alas! one of the dirtiest and most dilapidated. We were
directed to the upper story, Indiman leading the way.

A single attic chamber, bearing the marks of the cruelest poverty, a
stove, an artist's easel, a pallet spread directly on the grimy floor,
and upon it a man in the last stage of consumption. He glanced up at
Indiman and waved his hand feebly. He tried to speak, but his voice
died away in his throat; Indiman knelt by his side to catch the words.

"It is cold--shut stove door--there's enough now to last me out."

Indiman went to the stove, where a little fire was smouldering; he shut
the door and turned on the draught. The flame leaped up instantly, the
crazy smoke-pipe rattling as it expanded under the influence of the
heat. Indiman turned again to the dying man.

"You know well enough why I have come," he said, slowly. "I have in my
possession one of your copies of the 'Red Duchess.' Tell me the truth."

There was no audible response from the bloodless lips, but the dark
eyes were full of ironic laughter. Then they closed again.

"Richmond!" said Indiman, sharply. "Richmond!"

I had been standing by the door, but now I came forward and joined
Indiman. "Gone!" he said, briefly. "Gone, and taken his secret with
him. Only, what WAS the secret?"

We tried to argue it out on the way up-town, but with only indifferent
success. Granted the premise that Richmond had actually stolen the "Red
Duchess," what were his motives in multiplying copies of the picture, a
proceeding that must infallibly end in the detection of his crime? And
the supreme question--what had finally become of the original?

My theory was simple enough. The man was mentally unbalanced, the
result of brooding over his own failure in art. He had stolen the
picture, possessed with the idea that by study of it he should discover
the secret of its power. He had made copies of the picture and sold
them in order to supply himself with the necessities of life. At the
end, knowing himself to be dying, he had caused the original to be
returned to the gallery at Petersburg, a contribution to the conscience
fund.

Indiman's argument was more subtle. "Granted," he said, "that the poor
chap was mentally irresponsible, and that he actually did steal the
picture. But you must take into account his colossal vanity, his
monumental egotism. Richmond never admitted for a moment that he was a
failure as an artist; there was a cabal against him, and that accounted
for everything. This affair was simply his revenge upon his critics and
detractors; he would turn out these reproductions of a masterpiece so
perfect in their technique as not to be distinguished from their
original, nor indeed from each other. So having set the artistic world
by the ears, he would enjoy his triumph, at first in secret, and
afterwards openly."

"But what was the picture returned to the Hermitage?"

"One of these same copies--that was the supreme sarcasm."

"The original, then--the 'Red Duchess'?"

"The fuel in the stove consisted of some strips of painted canvas,"
said Indiman, gravely. "I don't know, I can't be sure--they were almost
consumed when I shut the door."

"An imperfect copy," I hazarded.

"Some day we will take a trip to the Hermitage to make sure," answered
Indiman. "'Where ignorance is bliss,' etc. What do you think, Blake?"
he continued, turning to our companion.

"It's all the same to me, sir," answered Blake, a little ruefully. "It
was a big thing, right enough, but somehow I seem to have missed it all
round. Well, good-night, sir, if you'll kindly set me down at this
corner."

Indiman and I enjoyed a small supper under Oscar's watchful eye. The
night was fine and we started to walk home. Have I said that Indiman
had proposed that I should move my traps over to his house and take up
my quarters there for an indefinite period? In exchange for services
rendered, as he put it, and somehow he made it possible for me to
accept the invitation. It had been twenty-four hours now since I had
first enjoyed the honor of Mr. Esper Indiman's acquaintance; the
novelty of having enough to eat--actually enough--was already beginning
to wear off. Man is a wonderful creature; give him time and he will
adjust himself to anything.

At the corner of Fifth Avenue and Twenty-seventh Street, Indiman
stopped suddenly and picked up a small object. It was a latch-key of
the familiar Yale-lock pattern. I looked at it rather indifferently.

"Man! man!" said Indiman, with simulated despair. "Surely you are an
incorrigibly prosaic person. A key--does it suggest to you no
possibilities of mystery, of romance?"

"Well, not without a door," I answered, smartly.

"Oh, is that all! To-morrow we will go out and find a door upon which
this little key may be profitably employed. You promise to enter that
door with me?"

"I promise."




III

House in the Middle of the Block


"All things come to him who waits," quoted Indiman. "Do you believe
that?"

"It's a comfortable theory," I answered.

"But an untenable one. And Fortune is equally elusive to those who seek
her over-persistently. The truth, as usual, lies between the extremes."

"Well?"

"The secret is simple enough. He who is ready to receive, receives.
Love, fame, the shower of gold--they are in the air, and only waiting
to be precipitated. I stand ready to be amused, and that same afternoon
the Evening Post aims a blow at the Tammany 'Tiger' over the shoulder
of Mr. Edward M. Shepard; I am in the mood adventurous, and instantly
the shadow of a prodigy falls across my threshold; yea, though I live
on upper West End Avenue. Do you remember this?" and he held out a
small Yale latch-key.

"It is the one you picked up at Twenty-seventh Street and Fifth Avenue
last night."

"Precisely. Now a key, you observe, is intended to open something--in
this case a door. What door? As though that mattered! Put on your
rain-coat, my dear Thorp, and let us begin a little journey into the
unknown. Fate will lead us surely, O unbelieving one, if you will but
place your hand unresistingly in hers."

We left the house, and Indiman tossed a penny into the air. "Broadway,
heads; Fourth Avenue, tails." Tails it was.

Arrived at Fourth Avenue, we stood waiting for a car. The first that
came along was on its way up-town and we boarded it.

"Was it you who asked for a cross-town transfer at Twenty-ninth?"
inquired the conductor of Indiman a few minutes later, and Indiman
nodded assent and took the transfer slips.

At Eighth Avenue the cross-town car was blocked by a stalled coal-cart.
We alighted and passively awaited further directions from our esoteric
guide. Quite an amusing game for a dull, rainy afternoon, and I felt
grateful to Indiman for its invention.

The policeman on the corner was endeavoring to direct a very small boy
with a very large bundle. "Up one block and turn east," he said,
impressively. "I've told you that now three times."

I had a flash of inspiration. "Copper it," I cried.

"Right," said Indiman, soberly. We walked down one block to
Twenty-eighth Street and then turned westward.

New York is a big city, and therefore entitled to present an occasional
anomaly to the observant eye. And this particular section of
Twenty-eighth Street is one of these departures from the normal, a
block or two of respectable, even handsome houses set as an oasis in a
dull and sordid neighborhood. How and why this should be does not
matter; it is to be presumed that the people who live there are
satisfied, and it is nobody else's business.

We walked on slowly, then, half-way down the block, Indiman stopped me.
"What did I tell you?" he whispered.

The house was of the English basement type, and occupied two of the
ordinary city lots; nothing particularly remarkable about that, and I
said as much.

"But look again," insisted Indiman. I did so and saw a man standing at
the door, evidently desirous of entering. Twice, while we stood
watching him, he rang without result, and the delay annoyed him. He
shook the door-knob impatiently, and then fell to researching his
pockets, an elaborate operation that consumed several minutes.

"Lost his latch-key," commented Indiman. He walked up the steps of the
entrance porch. "You might try mine," he said, politely, and held out
the key picked up the night before at Fifth Avenue and Twenty-seventh
Street.

"Huh!" grunted the man, suspiciously, but he took the little piece of
metal and inserted it into the slot of the lock. The door swung open.
Amazing, but what followed was even more incredible. The man stepped
into the hall, but continued to hold the door wide open.

"You're coming in, I suppose," he said, surlily.

"Certainly," answered Indiman. "This way, Thorp," he called at me, and
most unwillingly I obeyed. We passed into the house and the door closed
behind us. Our introducer turned up the gas in the old-fashioned hall
chandelier, and favored us with a perfunctory stare. "New members, eh!"
he grunted, and turned away as though it were a matter of entire
indifference to him. But Indiman spoke up quickly.

"Pardon me," he began, with the sweetest suavity. "I was afraid for the
moment that we had got into the wrong place. This is the--" a
delicately suggestive pause.

"The Utinam Club," supplied the other.

"Exactly," said Indiman, in a most relieved tone. "It IS the Utinam,
Thorp," he continued, turning to me. Now I had not the smallest notion
of what the Utinam Club might be, consequently I preserved a discreet
silence. Indiman addressed himself again to our ungracious cicerone.

"A snug little box you have here, Mr, er--"

"Hoyt, sir--Colman Hoyt."

"Ah, yes--of North Pole fame. You are the man--"

"Who has led four expeditions to reach it, and failed as often. That is
MY title to fame. And also my qualification for membership in the
Utinam Club," he added, grimly.

"Ah, yes--the discovery of the Pole. A unique and delightful idea in
clubdom--eh, Thorp? To succeed--"

"No, sir; to FAIL," interrupted Mr. Hoyt, rudely. "What the devil do
you suppose I am doing in this galley? You must be a very new member of
the Utinam Club."

"To tell the truth, Mr. Hoyt," said Indiman, with an air of engaging
frankness, "I have never, until this moment, even heard of the Utinam
Club. But for all that I am convinced that I am about to become a
member of it, and I may say the same for my friend, Mr. Thorp. Now,
possibly you may be inclined to assist us."

Mr. Hoyt stared. "It's a pity, isn't it," he remarked, reflectively,
"that our standard of eligibility doesn't conform to that of your
impudence. Still, I won't say that it can't be done; this is a
proprietary club, you know. You had better see Dr. Magnus."

"Dr. Magnus?"

"The proprietor of the Utinam Club. Here he comes now."

A slight, gray-haired man of fifty or there-abouts had entered the hall
from the rear and immediately came forward to meet us. His eyes were
the extraordinary feature of his face, piercingly brilliant and
enormously magnified by the spectacles that he wore. The lenses of the
latter were nearly an eighth of an inch thick and evidently of the
highest power. Even with their aid his powers of vision seemed
imperfect. On hearing the few words of explanation vouchsafed by the
unamiable Mr. Hoyt, he drew from his pocket a second and third pair of
glasses and deliberately added both to his original optical equipment.
I know that I felt like a fly under a microscope in facing that
formidable battery of lenses. But the scrutiny seemed to satisfy him;
he spoke courteously enough:

"Step into my office, gentlemen, and we will talk the matter over."

Mr. Colman Hoyt had departed without further formality, and we followed
our host into the room adjoining the hall on the right. It looked like
the study of a man of science; charts and globes and plaster-of-Paris
casts were everywhere, while the far end of the apartment was occupied
by a huge, flat-topped table covered with papers, test-tubes, and
glass-slides. But even more remarkable than its contents was the room
itself, and its singular architectural proportions at once engaged my
attention.

As I have said, the house occupied two twenty-five-foot city lots, but
the entrance and hall were at the extreme right as one looks outward
towards the street, instead of being in the centre, as is usually the
case. Consequently, the room in which we stood (being undivided by any
interior partitions) extended the full width of the house, less that of
the entrance hall--forty feet, let us say, in round numbers. But its
measurements in the other direction were barely ten feet, the apartment
presenting the appearance of a long, low, and narrow gallery. At the
back were a row of five windows taking light from the interior
court-yard; in brief, the house, imposing in its dimensions from the
street side, was little more than a mask of masonry extremely
ill-adapted for human habitation, or, indeed, for any purpose. Stepping
to one of the rear windows, I looked out, and then the reason for this
extraordinary construction--or, rather, reconstruction--became
apparent. The lot was of the usual depth of one hundred feet, and,
being a double one, it had a width of fifty. A large building of gray
stone occupied the farther end of this inside space, the erection
measuring about sixty feet in depth and extending the full width of the
enclosure. That left a little less than thirty feet of court-yard
between this back building and the one facing on the street, and it was
evident that the rear of the original house had been sheared off bodily
to provide for this singular readjustment in the owner's modus vivendi,
only the party walls on either side being left standing. And these had
been extended so as to enflank the building in the rear.

If I have made my description clear, it now will be understood that the
facade of the original house was nothing more than a shell, a ten-foot
screen whose principal office was to conceal the interior structure
from curious eyes. Describing the latter more particularly, it should
be noted that it was connected with the original house by a covered
passageway of brick running along one side of the court-yard and
communicating with the hallway that led to the street door. Apparently,
the rear building was three stories in height--I say apparently, for,
being entirely destitute of windows, it was impossible to accurately
deduce the number of its floors. Aesthetically, it made no pretensions,
its only architectural feature being a domed roof of copper and a
couple of chimney-stacks, from one of which a thin streak of vapor
ascended. A chilling and depressing spectacle was that presented by the
"House in the Middle of the Block," as I mentally christened it, and I
speculated upon the strange offices to which it had been consecrated.

"The Utinam Club," answered my unspoken query. Dr. Magnus had advanced
to my side and stood staring at me through his triple lenses. I
started, involuntarily.

"There! there!" he said, soothingly. "I did not perceive that your
attention was so entirely absorbed. I am honored by your interest--the
Utinam Club, it is my hobby, sir, and one not altogether unworthy of
the consideration of an intelligent man."

"I can quite understand that," said Indiman, who had joined us at the
window. "There is a distinct stimulus to the imagination in the picture
before us. And what a picture!--this eyeless, gray-faced, architectural
monstrosity, crowned with squat, domelike head of coppery red, and set
in that gigantic cadre of fifty-foot masonry! Superb! Magnificent!"

"The honor of your acquaintance--" began Dr. Magnus.

"In two words," interrupted Indiman, smilingly. He made a brief
statement of the circumstances attendant upon the finding of the Yale
latch-key, and the proprietor of the Utinam Club listened attentively.

"I have a passion for the unique," concluded Indiman, "and the Utinam
Club appears to possess claims of unusual merit in that direction. I
own frankly that I am curious as to its object and qualifications for
membership."

"They are quite simple," answered Dr. Magnus. "Indeed, the name of the
club explains its raison d'etre--Utinam, a Latin ejaculation equivalent
to our 'Would to Heaven!' or 'Would that I could be!' To be eligible
for membership in the Utinam Club, one must have had a distinct object
or ambition in life and then have failed to realize it."

"Ah, I begin to understand," murmured Indiman. "An extraordinary basis,
indeed, for a social organization--the lame ducks, the noble army of
the incapables, the gentlemen a main gauche! Pray go on; you interest
me exceedingly."

"We have them all here," answered Dr. Magnus, smiling. "The
unsuccessful author, the business bankrupt, the artist whose pictures
have never reached the line. The touch-stone of failure, you see; the
clubability (odious word!) of our membership is unimpeachable.

"A superb conception. My dear Dr. Magnus, I must beg of you to enroll
Mr. Thorp and myself at once. Believe me that we are not unworthy of a
place in your galaxy of dark stars."

Dr. Magnus walked to the table and took up his pen. "This gentleman?"
he began, inquiringly, and looked at me.

"An unfortunate affair of the heart," answered Indiman--an exquisite
piece of audacity at which I frowned, and then perforce had to smile.
"It comes within your rule, I trust?"

"For limited membership only," answered Dr. Magnus. "In fact, we rather
discourage victims of sentimental reverses, it being invariably
impossible to determine whether the transaction is finally to show a
profit or a loss. Then, too, the quick recoveries--but we'll let it
stand at that. Now, with yourself?"

"I," said Indiman, gravely, "am a mathematician by instinctive
preference and early training, but I have never been able to cross the
'Ass's Bridge,' the Forty-seventh problem of Euclid. Incidentally, I
may mention that I am a golf-player with a handicap of eighteen."

"A double first," commented the proprietor of the Utinam Club. "I
perceive, Mr. Indiman, that you are bent upon amusing yourself; and
since circumstances have undeniably favored you, you may continue to do
so. But not at my expense," and thereupon he mentioned a figure for
initiation and dues that made me sit up. But Indiman settled without
flinching; he happened to have his check-book with him, and the
remaining formalities were quickly discharged.

"And now, gentlemen, let me show you about the club," said Dr. Magnus,
affably. "Will you be good enough to follow me?"

He led the way into the hall, and thence into the cloister-like passage
communicating with the "House in the Middle of the Block." I glanced
out at the court-yard as we passed a window; it was most ingeniously
planned to take the utmost advantage of its limited area. An antique
Italian fountain occupied a niche in the opposite wall, and on either
side were sedilia flanked by bay-trees in tubs and two or three fine
specimens of the Japanese dwarf oak. A bas-relief in plaster of the
Elgin marbles ran friezelike the full length of the party wall, and
fixed immediately above the fountain niche the terrible mask of the
Medusa face looked down upon us. The time of the year being late in
March, there was no snow upon the ground, and I could see that the
ground of the court-yard was divided into four garden-beds, separated
from each other by narrow paths of broad, red tile bordered by box. All
in all it was a charming little bit of formal gardening; I could
imagine how pretty it would be on a spring morning, when the beds
should be gay with crocuses and tulips.

We were admitted into the club proper by a liveried servant, and from
the handsome oak-panelled vestibule we passed into a lofty apartment
hung with pictures and filled with miscellaneous objects of art. All,
without exception, were execrable--miserable daubs of painting,
criminal essays in plastic and decorative work, and a collection of
statuary that could be adequately matched only by the horrors in
Central Park. "Our art gallery, gentlemen," explained Dr. Magnus.

Art gallery indeed! To me it was the most melancholy of exhibitions,
but Indiman was enraptured.

"What a magnificent record of failure!" he exclaimed. "What miracles of
ineptitude!" and Dr. Magnus smiled, well pleased.

We ascended to the next floor. Here was the library, lined ceiling-high
with books that had fallen still-born from the press. Gigantic cabinet
presses occupied the centre of the room, the final depository of
countless "unavailable" MSS. In an adjoining room were glass-cases
crowded with mechanical models of unsuccessful inventions. Naturally, I
expected to see a large section devoted to the resolution of the
perpetual-motion problem, but in this I was disappointed, not a single
specimen of the kind could I discover.

"We do not attempt the impossible," explained Dr. Magnus, dryly. "Our
failures must be inherent in the man, not in his subject."

There were other rooms, a long succession of them, filled with
melancholy evidences of incapacity and defeat in almost every
department of human activity--plans of abortive military campaigns,
prospectuses of moribund business enterprises, architectural and
engineering drawings of structures never to be reared, charts, models,
unfinished musical scores, finally a huge papier-mache globe on which
were traced the routes of Mr. Colman Hoyt's four unsuccessful dashes
for the North Pole. It depressed me, the sight of this vast
lumber-room, this collection of useless flotsam and jetsam, cast up and
rejected by the sea of strenuous life. Most moving of all, a broken
golf-club standing in a dusty corner, and beside it a wofully scarred
and battered ball. I pointed them out to Indiman.

"A fellow-sufferer," he said, and sighed deeply.

Last of all we were conducted to the common room, a spacious apartment
immediately under the dome. At one end a huge stone fireplace, in which
a fire crackled cheerfully.

"'Non Possumus,'" read Indiman, deciphering the motto chiselled upon
the chimney-breast.

"An admirable sentiment indeed! Dr. Magnus, I venture to infer that the
Utinam Club is the child of your own brain. Permit me, sir, to
congratulate you--a glorious inception and carried out to perfection."

Dr. Magnus smiled frostily. "I thank you, Mr. Indiman," he said,
staring hard at him. "In a civilization so complex as ours the Utinam
undoubtedly fills a want. And now, gentlemen, if you will excuse me; I
have some affairs of moment. The club is yours; make use of it as you
will. You are already acquainted with Mr. Hoyt, I believe. The other
gentlemen--but opportunity will doubtless serve." He bowed and withdrew.

Indiman dropped into an easy-chair and lit a cigar. "Les miserables,"
he said to me in an undertone. "Look at them."

In truth, it was a strange company with whom we had foregathered. There
were perhaps a dozen men in the room, and each seemed absorbed in the
listless contemplation of his own dejected personality. The large table
in the centre of the room was laden with newspapers and periodicals,
but no one had taken the trouble to displace the neat files in which
they had been arranged. The card-room adjoining was untenanted; the
green-baize tables, with their complement of shiny, new packs of cards
and metal counters, bore no evidence of use; in the billiard-room at
the back a marker slept restfully in his high-legged chair. Assuredly,
the members of the Utinam Club were not advocates of the strenuous life.

It was after six o'clock now, and the big room was beginning to fill up
with later arrivals. Yet there was none of the cheerful hum and bustle
ordinarily characteristic of such a gathering. A man would enter and
pass to his place unfavored by even the courtesy of a friendly glance;
at least a score of men had made their first appearance within the last
quarter of an hour, and not a single word of greeting or recognition
had I heard exchanged. Among them was Mr. Colman Hoyt, the unsuccessful
Arctic explorer. He passed close to where Indiman and I sat, yet never
looked at us. An odd set, these our fellow-members of the Utinam, and
one naturally wondered why they came to the club at all. But we were
now to learn.

As I have said, the building was entirely windowless, ventilation being
secured by forced draught from an engine-room in the basement.
Consequently, artificial light was necessary at all times, and a very
agreeable quality of it was furnished by electroliers concealed behind
ground-glass slides in the walls and ceilings of the various
apartments. The light thus obtained was diffused rather than direct,
and, being colorless, it closely approximated natural conditions, the
delusion being heightened by the construction of the wall panels so as
to simulate windows. To add again to the effect, these lights had been
gradually lowered as the day wore on. Now it must be almost dark in the
outside world, and it was twilight in the common room of the Utinam
Club; I could no longer distinguish between the motionless figures of
the men around me and the shadows that enveloped them. Even the fire
was dying out; in a few moments the darkness would become profound, and
I felt my pulse slow down with the chill of the thought.

One single ember remained in the fireplace; I watched it gleaming like
a great red eye in its bed of ashes, then it winked and went out, and
at the same instant the last ray from the false windows disappeared.
Strain my eyes as I would, the sensitive retina remained absolutely
unaffected; the darkness had finally come, and from one to another of
that desolate company ran a little, tremulous sigh, then the silence of
complete negation.

From the apex of the domed ceiling a sudden and wonderful effulgence of
rose-colored light streamed forth, flooding the great room with
glorious color and life. Magical were its effects. Men straightened up
in their chairs and looked about them, the flush of returning animation
in their cheeks, and their eyes bright with questioning interest. A
youngish chap leaned over and spoke earnestly to his neighbor, then
some one laughed aloud. Instantly the flood-gates were opened; the air
was vibrant with the hum of conversation, the ringing of call-bells,
and the sputtering of fusees. A blue haze of cigarette-smoke formed
itself above the heads of the assemblage; the Utinam Club had come to
its own again.

The large folding-doors at the east end were now opened, disclosing the
supper-room beyond--a spacious apartment, and decorated with a barbaric
splendor of gilding and intricate plastic work. I remarked particularly
the preponderance of the red tints; indeed, no other shade of color
could I discover--but of this more particularly hereafter. Indiman
looked at me, and we trooped out with the rest--que voulez-vous? One
must always dine.

We found a small table; the napery and glass were exquisite, the
cuisine and service perfect. We surrendered ourselves to the
allurements of the hour. I was conscious of an unusual lightness and
exhilaration of spirit; Indiman's eyes were sparkling with unwonted
brilliancy. I raised my champagne-glass: "To the Utinam Club," I said,
with enthusiasm, and rather more loudly than I had intended. The toast
was at once re-echoed from every mouth, and a burst of laughter
followed.

A late-comer entered and looked about the room somewhat uncertainly,
for all the tables had been taken. It was Mr. Colman Hoyt. He saw us
and smiled genially. "We have room here," called out Indiman, and he
joined us.

"I am fortunate as ever," he said, as he took his seat. "New friends,
old wine; and our chef's sauce tartare is incomparable to-night. What
more can the heart of man desire?"

"Not even the North Pole?" said Indiman.

"Ah, the Pole! Bah! I can put my hand on it when I want it. Did I tell
you that I start to-morrow on my fifth expedition? Success is certain.
Will you honor me by drinking to it?" We drank solemnly.

"I thought you were wearing a dark-green scarf," I interrupted,
somewhat irrelevantly, speaking to Indiman.

"I am," he replied.

"It is red," I insisted. "Not green at all."

"Nonsense!" said Indiman, and thereupon Mr. Colman Hoyt burst into a
cackle of laughter.

"Complementary colors," he said. "All the blue, green, and yellow rays
are excluded from this kindly light invented by our friend Magnus;
consequently there can be no sensation of those colors within our
vision."

"A curious fancy," said Indiman.

"Say rather the most glorious and beneficent of discoveries," retorted
Mr. Hoyt. "All life and vigor and power of achievement are dependent
upon the red end of the spectrum. Incapacity, failure, disease,
death-they are generated by the violet rays alone; eliminate them, and
the problem of existence is solved. All hail to thee, O Magnus, and to
thy incomparable genius! Light of lights! All hail!"

A score of voices took up the cry, and I know that I shouted with the
rest. Then I felt Indiman's hand upon my arm; my sober senses partially
returned. "Keep hold of yourself," he whispered, and the warning came
in time, I pushed away my wineglass, and thereafter ate only enough of
the exquisitely seasoned viands to satisfy my hunger. And all the while
Mr. Colman Hoyt babbled foolishly about the white glories of the queen
of the North; to-morrow he should again be on the way to her dear
embraces. "The Pole, gentlemen; behold, I arrive; c'est moi!"

We passed out into the general room. The card-tables were now full, the
billiard-balls rolled incessantly across the green cloth; from an inner
room came the unmistakable click of a roulette-wheel. Men talked loudly
of their projects and ambitions shortly to be accomplished. An epic
poet was about to publish his magnum opus, the birth of a new star in
the poetical firmament; a speculator had made his great coup--to-morrow
he would have the wheat market cornered.

"My novel!" cried one. "My symphony!" retorted another. A third said no
word, but looked at the miniature of a woman's face that he held in the
hollow of his hand--looked and smiled.

The night wore away; nay, speeded were the better word, for no one felt
any suggestion even of weariness or satiety. Then suddenly the rose
glow grew dimmer; little by little the laughter died away and the
voices were hushed. A few of the bolder spirits set themselves to stem
the receding tide, but their blasphemies quickly trailed away into weak
incoherencies, and again silence conquered all. And darkness fell.

A servant crossed the room and drew aside the heavy velvet curtains
draping the false windows; the pure, colorless light streamed in, but
it disclosed a world in tinge all blue and green and indigo. Our eyes,
so long deprived of the rays emanating from the violet end of the
spectrum, were now affected by them alone; every object was horribly
transformed by the bluish-green bands surrounding and outlining it. A
man brushed carelessly past me; it was Colman Hoyt, and his face was of
a man already dead; his lips moved, but no sound issued from them. He
passed into the model-room connecting on the west with the central
hall; there was the sound of a fall, and Indiman and I followed
quickly. Yet not quickly enough, for across the great globe upon which
were traced the records of his four unsuccessful expeditions lay the
body of Colman Hoyt. He was a heavy man, and he had evidently flung
himself at his full weight upon the sharp, arrow-pointed rod that
served as the axis of this miniature world; it had pierced to his very
heart. The North Pole-at last he had reached it.

"Let us go," said Indiman to me, and we stole quickly away.

Now, in the vestibule below, a young man who had entered in haste
pushed rudely past us and made for the row of private letter-boxes
fixed opposite the coat-room. He paused at box No. 82 and gazed eagerly
into it. The front was of glass, and I could see readily that the box
was empty. The young man had his pass-key in his hand, but it was
clearly useless to insert it, and he finally turned away, his
countenance displaying the bitterest sense of disappointment. His
wildly roving eye encountered that of Esper Indiman. "Sir!" he began,
impetuously, then checked himself, bowed ceremoniously, and was gone.




IV

The Private Letter-Box


I had agreed to meet Esper Indiman at the Utinam and dine there. The
weather had turned cold again, for it was the end of our changeable
March, and the fireplace in the common room of the club was heaped high
with hickory logs, a cheerful sight, were it not for that odious motto,
"Non Possumus," graven over the mantel-shelf where it must inevitably
meet every eye. Never could I read it without a tightening at my
heartstrings; a potency of blighting evil seemed to lie in the very
words.

There were but two or three club members in the room, one of them the
young Mr. Sydenham, who had attracted my attention once or twice before
by the infinite wretchedness of his face. A mere boy, too, hardly
five-and-twenty at the most. He sat in a big chair, a magazine with its
leaves uncut lying in his lap. For an hour or more he had not stirred;
then he rang for a servant, directing him to inquire for any mail that
might have come in the afternoon delivery. Nothing for Mr. Sydenham was
the report, and again the young man relapsed into his melancholy
musing. An hour later, and just after Indiman had joined me, Mr.
Sydenham repeated his inquiry about his letters, receiving the same
negative answer--"Nothing for Mr. Sydenham." Evidently the
disappointment was not unexpected, but it was none the less a bitter
one. With a sigh which he hardly attempted to stifle, the young man
took up his uncut magazine and made a pretence at examining its
contents; I watched him with a lively but silent pity; any active
sympathy might have seemed obtrusive.

A servant stood at the young man's elbow holding a salver on which lay
a missive of some sort, a telegraphic message, to judge by the flimsy,
buff envelope.

"Telegram, sir," said the man, at length. "For Mr. Sydenham; yes, sir.
Will you sign for it?"

The boy turned slowly, and there was a shaking horror in his eyes that
made me feel sick. He signed the book and took the message from the
salver, apparently acting against a sense of the most intense
repulsion, and for all that unable to help himself. The message once in
his hand he did not seem to concern himself overmuch with its possible
import; presently the envelope fell from his inert fingers and
fluttered down at Indiman's feet. The latter picked it up and handed it
to the young man, who thanked him in a voice barely audible.

"The man is waiting to see if there is any answer," suggested Indiman,
quietly.

Mr. Sydenham started, colored deeply, and tore open the envelope. He
read the message through carefully, then perused it for a second and a
third time, and sat motionless, staring into vacancy.

Indiman leaned forward. "Well?" he said, sharply.

The young man looked up; the cool confidence of Indiman's gaze seemed
suddenly to inspire in him a feeling of trust; he took the risk; he
handed the message to Indiman. "What answer would you advise me to
give?" he said.

The message contained these words:

"The Empire State express passes the Fifty-third Street bridge at 8.35
o'clock to-morrow morning. You can drop from the guard-rail. Is life
more than honor? Answer.  V. S."

Indiman looked at me, then he rose and took Mr. Sydenham by the arm.
"Let us go into the card-room," he said, quietly. "Thorp, will you
come?"

The young man's story was very simple. He had held until lately the
position of cashier in the firm of Sandford & Sands, stock-brokers. On
January 15th a shortage of fifty thousand dollars had been discovered
in his books. Mr. Sandford being an intimate friend of the elder
Sydenham had declined to prosecute. That was all.

"Let us proceed frankly, Mr. Sydenham," said Indiman. "Did you take the
money?"

"I am beginning to think so," answered the young man, dully.

"Come," said Indiman, encouragingly, "that does not sound like a
confession of guilt. Don't you know?"

Mr. Sydenham shook his head. "I can't tell you," he answered,
hopelessly. "My accounts were in perfect order up to January 10th, when
I discovered that our bank balance showed a discrepancy of fifty
thousand dollars. I covered it over for the time, hoping to find the
source of the error. Five days later I told Mr. Sandford. The money was
gone, and that was all that I could say."

"Let us recall the events of January 9th. Did you make your regular
deposit that day, and where?"

"We keep our account at the Bank of Commerce. But that afternoon I
overlooked a package of bills in large denominations. I sent another
messenger over to the bank, but it was after three o'clock and the
deposit was refused. The boy brought the money back to me--the package
contained fifty thousand dollars."

"And then?"

"I don't know. I might have locked it up in our own safe or carried it
home with me or pitched it out of the window. It is all a blank."

"Did you stay at the office later than usual that day?"

"Yes; I was busy with some of Mr. Sandford's private affairs, and that
delayed me until all the others had gone. I left about five o'clock."

"And now who is V. S.? Pardon me, but the question is necessary."

"Miss Valentine Sandford--Mr. Sandford's daughter. I was engaged to be
married to her."

"Since when?"

"I had proposed and was waiting for my answer. Then that very day she
sent me a telegram. It contained the single word 'yes' and was signed
by her initials. It came at the same moment that the messenger brought
back the money from the bank."

"And it is the same V. S, who sends this message?" asked Indiman,
smoothing out the telegraph blank which he held in his hand.

The young man took a bundle of papers from his breast-pocket. They were
all telegraphic messages, and each was a suggestion towards
self-destruction in one form or another. "Suicide's corner" at Niagara,
poison, the rope--all couched in language of devilish ingenuity in
innuendo, and ending in every instance with the expression, "Is life
more than honor? Answer. V. S."

"I have had at least one every day," said the young man. "Sometimes two
or three. Generally in the morning, but they also come at any hour."

"And Miss Sandford?"

"I wrote and told her of my terrible misfortune, released her from the
unannounced engagement, and begged her to believe in me until I could
clear myself. I have not seen her since the fatal day of the 15th of
January."

"And you have received from her only these--these messages?"

"That is all."

"And you think they come from her?"

"No; or I should have killed myself long ago. But there are times when
I have to take a tight hold on myself; to-day is one of them," he
added, very simply.

"Mr. Sydenham," said Indiman, solemnly, "I now know you to be an
innocent man. Had it been otherwise you would long since have succumbed
under this mysterious and terrible pressure."

"I am innocent!" repeated the young man. "But to prove it?"

"It shall be proved."

"The money?"

"It shall be found."

"Through whom?"

"Yourself. A simple lapse of memory is the undoubted explanation. The
gap must be bridged, that is all. Will you put yourself in my hands?"

"Unreservedly."

"Good! I desire then that you should return to your home and wait there
until you hear from me. The address--thank you. You had better leave
the club at once; this atmosphere is not the most wholesome for a man
in your position."

Mr. Sydenham proved most amenable to all of Indiman's suggestions, and
we did not lose sight of him until he was finally on his way uptown in
a Columbus Avenue car.

"A good subject," remarked Indiman, "and it should be comparatively
easy to get at the submerged consciousness in his case. A simple
reconstruction of the scene should be sufficient."

"You don't think the money was stolen, then?"

"Not at all. It will be found in some safe place, its disposal being an
act of Sydenham's subliminal personality, of which his normal
consciousness knows nothing."

"But why--"

"The man was NOT himself that ninth day of January. He had received a
tremendous impression in the receipt of that message from Miss
Sandford. He was an accepted lover, and the consciousness, for the time
being, swept him off his feet. He was doing his work mechanically, and
it did not matter so long as it was only routine. Then came the
emergency, and, objectively, he was unable to cope with it. The
subjective personality took command and did the right thing, for
Sydenham is an honest man. What action the subliminal self actually
took is known only to itself, and no effort of Sydenham's normal memory
will suffice to recall it. But there are other means of getting at the
truth. The most practical is to reproduce the situation as exactly as
possible. Given the same first causes and we get the identical results.
First, now to see Mr. Sandford, with whom luckily I have some
acquaintance."

It was like the playing of a game, the scene in Sandford & Sand's
office that following afternoon. The staff of clerks had been sent home
as soon as possible after three o'clock, all save the young man who
acted as bank messenger. The calendar on the wall had been set back to
January 9th, and the HERALD of that date lay half-opened on Sydenham's
old desk. It will be remembered that Sydenham had been detained on some
of Mr. Sandford's private business, and it was perfectly feasible to
reconstruct its details. Mr. Sandford had been coached in his part by
Indiman, and the preparations for the experiment being finally
perfected, Sydenham was called in. He appeared, dressed in the same
clothes that he had worn the month before, looking a little pale,
indeed, but resolute and collected.

"Mr. Sydenham," said Indiman, keeping his eyes fixed on the young man's
face, "you will observe that this is January 9, 1903. Kindly seat
yourself at your desk, and remain there as passive as possible. Wait
now until we withdraw."

Through the half-opened door of Mr. Sandford's private office we could
see distinctly all that passed. Sydenham sat motionless at his desk;
Alden, the bank messenger, was within call in the outer office. The
hands of the clock, which had been set back, pointed to five minutes of
three.

A telegraph delivery boy entered and handed Sydenham a yellow envelope.
He signed for it and the boy withdrew. He opened it, and instead of a
written message drew out a fresh sprig of heliotrope. Motionless and
scarcely breathing, he sat and gazed at it as though he could never
fill his eyes with the sight.

"Now," said Indiman, pushing Mr. Sandford into the room where the young
cashier sat.

The conversation was a brief one, relating to the papers that Mr.
Sandford carried in his hand.

"Leave them on your way up-town in my box at the safe-deposit company,"
concluded Mr. Sandford. Then he took his hat and went out.

Sydenham swung back to his desk; the HERALD lying there was in his way,
and he tossed it onto the floor. Underneath lay a package of bills of
large denominations.

The cashier acted quickly. "Alden!" he called, and the messenger came
running in.

"I overlooked this package," said Sydenham; "it contains fifty thousand
dollars. Do you think you can get to the bank with it? You have a
minute and a half."

The messenger seized the package and dashed away. Sydenham looked again
at the sprig of heliotrope; he pressed it passionately to his lips.
Then carefully placing it in his pocket-book, he began an examination
of the papers left by Mr. Sandford. The clock struck three.

The clerk Alden re-entered. "They wouldn't take it," he said, and
handed the package of bills to Sydenham.

"Oh, very well," said the cashier, absently, "I'll take care of it.
That's all, Alden; you can go."

For an hour or more Sydenham worked steadily. Then, gathering the
papers together, he rose, took off his office-coat, and began making
preparations to depart. Once he came into Mr. Sandford's private
office, where we were sitting, but apparently he did not notice our
presence. Indiman gripped my hand hard. "Going splendidly," he
whispered.

The cashier put on his hat and top-coat. The legal papers were
carefully stowed in an inside pocket, and he was about to close down
his roll-top desk when the package of bank-bills met his eye. He
frowned perplexedly; then picking up the bundle he dropped it into the
same pocket with the papers belonging to Mr. Sandford. He went out,
closing the door behind him.

We followed as quickly as we could, but this time luck was against
us--Sydenham had disappeared.

"To the safe-deposit company," said Indiman, and we jumped into a
hansom. Mr. Sandford was there, and we waited impatiently for
Sydenham's appearance; it was the only chance of again picking up the
lost trail.

There he came, walking slowly up Nassau Street, his manner a trifle
preoccupied and his eyes bent on the pavement. Opposite the
safe-deposit company he stopped and thrust his hand into a
waistcoat-pocket. He took it away empty and a terrible change came over
his face. With a quick movement he drew out the bundle of bank-notes
and regarded it fixedly. A cry burst from his lips; he reeled and fell,
the money still clutched in his hand.

Instantly we were at his side. A coach was at hand, and we got him into
it and directed the driver to proceed to Indiman's lodgings. The attack
had been but a momentary one, and Sydenham revived as we turned out of
Park Row. He looked at us, then at the money in his hand.

"It has failed," he said, brokenly, and none of us could say a word. "I
came to myself," continued Sydenham, with forced calmness, "there in
Nassau Street; it was as though I had awakened from a dream. The
money--it was in my hand. I stood before the world, a self-convicted
thief. I thank you; you have done your best, but it is useless." He
passed the money to Mr. Sandford; mechanically his hand went to the
inside breast-pocket of his over-coat; he drew out the package of legal
papers bearing Mr. Sandford's name. "But--but," he stammered, "I don't
understand--I left these in your box at the safe-deposit company."

"To be sure you did," answered Indiman, coolly. He pulled the
check-cord. "Drive back to the safe deposit," he called to the hackman.

"Now, then," said Indiman, in a quiet, matter-of-fact tone, "will you
tell me the conditions under which you had access to Mr. Sandford's
vault. Of course your name as an authorized agent of Mr. Sandford was
on the company's books. You had your pass-key, of course?"

"No," said Mr. Sandford. "There was but one pass-key, and that I kept
myself. When Mr. Sydenham had any business to do for me at the
safe-deposit vaults I would let him have the key temporarily."

"You gave it to him on that particular day, the 9th of January?"
continued Indiman.

"Yes."

"Where is it now?" almost shouted Indiman.

"Here," said Mr. Sandford, in surprise. "On my key-ring."

"Exactly. There is the broken link in our psychological chain. When Mr.
Sydenham felt for the pass-key, which should have been in his pocket,
he discovered that it was missing. Instantly the continuity of events
was broken, the subliminal personality was again submerged, and Mr.
Sydenham's normal consciousness was re-established. Mr. Sandford, you
are perfectly aware of the fact that these legal papers were properly
deposited in your vault, and that the pass-key was returned to you by
Mr. Sydenham on the morning of January 10th. Gentlemen, it is evident
that we shall find the original fifty thousand dollars lying in Mr.
Sandford's strong-box, where it was left by Mr. Sydenham on the
afternoon of January 9th."

I confess that I was mightily excited when the moment came to test the
correctness of Indiman's deductions. We were shown into a private room,
and, under Mr. Sandford's eye, the treasure-box belonging to him was
carried in and opened. Almost at the bottom lay a long, brown Manila
envelope fastened with three red rubber bands. It contained fifty
one-thousand-dollar bills.

"I noticed that envelope several times," explained Mr. Sandford, "but
supposed it contained some mining stock. You see here is another
envelope identical in appearance and lying directly beneath it. Mr.
Sydenham never suggested even that he might have left the missing money
in my safe-deposit vault."

"It never occurred to me that I could have done so," said Sydenham. "I
remembered making a deposit of the papers--but the money, no, I had no
recollection of having seen or touched it from the moment that Alden
brought it back from the bank and laid it on my desk."

"Gentlemen," said Mr. Sandford, "I am indebted to you for much more
than the mere recovery of the money. But we will speak of that again.
Where can I put you down? Mr. Sydenham I shall carry off to my house; I
want to have a talk with him."

But Indiman declined to re-enter the coach, pleading some further
business down-town, and, of course, I remained with him. The carriage
was about to drive off when Indiman put up his hand.

"How stupid of me!" he exclaimed. "I had almost forgotten." He took
from the pocket of his overcoat a rather bulky package and handed it to
young Mr. Sydenham. "They'll explain themselves," he said, smiling. The
coach rolled away.

"The missing letters from V. S.," said Indiman, in answer to my look of
inquiry. "An average of two a day, and all addressed to him at the
Utinam. Well, what was the poor girl to do? The young fool had changed
his lodgings and obliterated every possible trace of his whereabouts.
All Miss Sandford had to go on was the bare intimation that he could be
addressed at the Utinam Club. She might as well have posted her
communications in the North River."

"I don't follow you."

"Two days ago I put a dummy letter addressed to Sydenham in his private
lock-box at the Utinam. I had promised, you know, to send him on his
mail if he would keep away from the club, and accordingly I had the key
of the letter-box in my possession. Ten minutes later I went again to
the box and it was empty--that is, you could see distinctly from one
end of the box to the other, and it was absolutely bare."

"A duplicate key, of course."

"Not at all. It is only a stupid person who descends to crime--except
as a last resort."

"Well, then?"

"Did you ever attend any of the exhibitions at the old Egyptian Hall?
One of the favorite illusions was the trick cabinet in which the
performer seated himself in full view of the spectators. The doors
would be closed for an instant, and then, when reopened, the man had
disappeared. The full interior of the cabinet was plainly visible; it
stood on legs, which precluded the idea of a trap-door, and it was
incontestably shown that egress from the back, top, or sides was
impossible."

"Yet the performer was gone?"

"I said that the cabinet appeared to be empty--quite another thing."

"Go on."

"It was a simple arrangement of plate-glass mirrors fitting closely at
the sides and backed by the distinctive pattern of wall-paper with
which the rest of the cabinet was covered. Immediately that the doors
were closed, the performer drew these false sides outward, so that they
met the centre post of the doors at an acute angle. The true side walls
were thereby exposed, and, of course, they were papered to correspond
with the rest of the interior. Their reflection was doubled in the
mirrors, making it appear to the observer that the whole cabinet was
open to his vision. The truth was that he saw only half of it, the
performer being concealed behind the mirrors. The only possible point
at which the illusion could be detected was the angle where the mirrors
joined, and this was masked by the centre post at which the double
doors met. To conclude the trick, the doors were again closed, the
performer swung the mirrors back into place, and, presto! he was back
in the cabinet, smiling genially at the gaping crowd."

"Then you think--"

"I know. Lock-box No. 82 was constructed on the same principle in
miniature, the letter-slit being placed in such a position that
anything deposited in the box fell behind the mirrors, the whole
interior remaining apparently visible through the glass front, and
presumably empty. The owner of the box would naturally glance into it
before actually using his pass-key. Obviously, it were a waste of time
to go through the form of opening an EMPTY box, and so poor Sydenham
never got any of the letters that were daily deposited there, for the
receptacle is a large one and the secret place behind the mirrors was
almost full. The action of unlocking the box operated upon an interior
mechanism that swung back the mirrors at the same instant that the door
was pulled open. After seeing my dummy disappear, I tried the
experiment, and was amply rewarded.

"There isn't much more to tell. When I saw the letters lying there I
knew that it was all right so far as the girl was concerned. I had only
to acquaint Miss Sandford with the circumstances in the case to secure
her further co-operation, for, of course, she had never ceased to
believe in her lover. She prepared and sent the message which you saw
delivered to Sydenham in Sandford's office this afternoon.

"But it was not the same as the one received by him on the actual
January 9th. That contained a word, 'yes,' and was signed by her
initials; this second one consisted simply of a sprig of heliotrope."

"Do you understand the language of flowers? The heliotrope means, 'Je
t'adore,' and Sydenham understood it instantly, as you saw."

"Yes; but why--"

"To repeat the original message would not have impressed him as I
wished; it would simply have seemed part of the illusion which he knew
perfectly well we were endeavoring to create. The problem was to
suddenly startle him by a real communication from V. S., and, above
all, to have it of such a nature as to convince him that the cloud
between them had finally lifted. Now, without trust and confidence,
true love is impossible. The message of the sprig of heliotrope told
him all that he had been hungering and longing to hear throughout these
terrible two months; the shock was sufficient to drive the normal
consciousness from its seat and permit the subliminal self to take
control. In other words, it practically put him back in the identical
mental mood of the afternoon of January 9th, and that was the crucial
point of the whole experiment. Anything more?"

"Who sent the false telegrams?"

"Of course, you would ask that. I don't know."

"Such a monstrous wickedness! It is inconceivable."

"Yes, unless we admit the existence of a spirit of pure malevolence
seeking to drive an innocent man to self-destruction for no other
motive than that of doing evil for evil's sake. That such an
intelligence has been active in this case is certain; or how explain
the cheat of the letter-box, a necessary factor in the problem, as you
will admit?"

"But you don't know."

"Not yet," answered my friend Indiman.

We dined down-town that evening, and it was about nine o'clock when we
called a hackney-coach and started homeward. As we drove on up the
Bowery an illuminated transparency caught our eyes.

"'Fair and Bazaar,'" read Indiman. "'Benefit of the United
House-smiths' Benevolent Association.' What is a house-smith, Thorp?
Evidently we will have to go and find out for ourselves." He pulled the
check-cord and gave the driver the new direction. Pure foolishness, of
course, but Indiman was not to be put out of his humor.

Up one flight of stairs to a large, low-ceilinged hall that was jammed
to suffocation. A score of gayly trimmed booths wherein were displayed
various articles of feminine fallals and cheap bric-a-brac, each
presided over by a lady house-smith. "Or should it be house-smithess?"
asked Indiman. "Hullo! What's this?"

Behind a long counter covered with red-paper muslin sat a dozen young
women of more or less pronounced personal charms, and a huge placard
announced that, kisses were on sale at the uniform price of fifty
cents. "Take your own choice." Smaller cards bore the various cognomens
assumed for the occasion by the fair venders of osculatory delights.
"Cleopatra," "The Fair One with Golden Locks," "Kathleen Mavourneen,"
"Pocahontas," or more simply, albeit not less mysteriously, "Miss A.
B.," or "Mademoiselle X." Of course, each had dressed the part as
nearly as might be, and the exhibition was certainly attractive to the
masculine eye. In questionable taste, no doubt, but one does not stand
upon trifles when it is all for sweet charity's sake.

"My dear Thorp," said Indiman, with the utmost gravity, "have you half
a dollar in your pocket? Then come with me," and forthwith we jammed
and corkscrewed our way through the crowd until we reached the long
counter covered with red-paper muslin.




V

The Ninety-and-nine Kisses


The fair and bazaar of the United House-smiths' Benevolent Association
was assuredly a tremendous success, and not the least of its
attractions was the open market where kisses might be purchased at the
ridiculously small price of fifty cents each. But "Cash before
delivery" was the motto, and on the counter in front of each young
woman stood a brass bowl in which the purchaser deposited his
money--"Free list entirely suspended." One could see that "The Fair One
with Golden Locks," a large, full-fed blonde with extraordinarily vivid
red cheeks, had been doing a rushing business; her bowl was overflowing
with notes and coin. And the others also had done well, all except
"Mademoiselle D.," the girl at the far end; she had not made a single
sale. A slight little thing, pale and somewhat anxious-looking; no
wonder that customers had passed her by. Then she looked up, and we
both caught our breath. What eyes! Eyes of the purest, serenest
gray--gray of that rare quality that holds no tint of either green or
blue. Her eyes were her one beauty indeed, but the superlative miracle
of loveliness is best seen when it stands alone. And these dolts of
house-smiths had passed on to sample the pink-and-white confectionery
at the other end of the counter.

"One hundred, if you please," and Indiman laid a fifty-dollar bill in
the bowl of the girl with the gray eyes. The crowd stopped and gaped,
and "Mademoiselle D." turned from white to red and then to white again.

"Bought up the whole stock, boss?" asked a foolish-looking youth whose
collar was slowly but surely choking him to death.

"Better take a couple on account," said the pert damsel attached to the
young fellow's arm; "they might turn sour on you, Mister Man."

"Give 'em away with a pound of tea," put in a third joker. "Eh, Josie?"

"Let's get away from here," whispered Indiman to me. "The girl looks as
though she might faint."

We pushed on through the crowd that continued to chaff us
good-naturedly--"joshing" they called it. Then we managed to struggle
into a sort of backwater at the side of the dais upon which an alleged
string band was trying to make good, as the scornful Miss Josie
remarked.

"There's something wrong in this, Thorp," said Indiman to me, in an
undertone. "Did you notice the stout man who stood immediately behind
her?"

"The chap with one ear a full size larger than the other? Yes, I did."

"He never takes his eyes from her, and I believe that the girl is here
against her will."

"Indiman!--" I began, but he cut me short.

"I know it, I tell you, and I'm going to take her away. Do you see that
electric-light switch on the wall behind you?"

Back of the musicians' platform was a small wall cupboard holding the
usual apparatus for controlling the incandescent lights with which the
hall was illuminated. "Pull down both handles when I give the signal,"
he went on, imperturbably.

"What signal?"

Indiman considered. "I'll take one of my kisses," he said, smiling.

"I'll do nothing of the kind."

"Oh yes, you will. Remember now--the instant that I bend down to kiss
her."

He was gone, leaving me to curse his folly. I tried to overtake him,
but the foolish youth and his Josie blocked my way, intentionally, it
seemed; that was part of their joshing of the stranger within the
house-smiths' gates. I stepped up on the platform, and looked for
Indiman. He had just reached the counter covered with red-paper muslin;
he pushed his way up to the girl with the gray eyes and said something
to her. She seemed to shrink away. Indiman turned for an instant and
looked back at me, then he bent down and kissed her.

Without having had the slightest intention of so doing, I pulled down
both handles; the hall was in instant and utter darkness. For a moment
the following silence persisted, menacing and deadly; it was as though
panic had suddenly reared her frightful head, a wild beast ready to
spring.

A girl's light laugh turned the scale. "Trying to raid the fruit-stand,
are you, bub?" went on Miss Josie, in her thin, cool voice. "Thought
you could pinch a couple in the dark of the moon; but nay, nay,
Thomas--those two smacks 'll just cost you supper for four. I'm not
sitting behind the bargain-counter to-day, thank you."

A babel of cat-calls, oaths, and laughter broke out, but the tension
had been released and the danger was over. I pushed and jammed through
the crowd to the stairs. No one was attempting to leave; in the hall
they had just got the lights turned on again. I started down.

"Here, you!"

I looked back; the stout man with the disproportionate ears stood at
the head of the stairs, hemmed in by the crowd. He panted and shook his
clinched fist at me. "You!--you!" he shouted, impotently. I ran on.

In the street below Indiman was helping the girl into the coach. He
turned as I ran up.

"Good!" he said, and offered me his cigarette-case.

"The big fellow is coming down," I urged.

"Have a light," said Indiman. "And now, my son, allons!"

I stepped into the coach, and Indiman after me. There was a sound of
angry voices from the hall above; two or three men dashed down the
stairway, others following.

"Drive on!" shouted Indiman, and the carriage started. Then we both
turned and looked blankly at that empty back seat.

Indiman bit his lip. "It is an old trick--leaving by the other door,"
he said, quietly. "It was while we were lighting our cigarettes; and
that reminds me that I have decided to give up the habit." He tossed
his cigarette out of the window; the coach rolled away.

Private business called me to Washington the next day, and I had to
take the night train back, arriving in New York at the uncomfortably
early hour of seven. But it was some small satisfaction to rap
vigorously upon Indiman's door as I passed to my own room. One always
experiences a sense of virtue in being up at unseasonable hours, and
blessings should be shared with one's friends. Later on we met at
breakfast, and he did not thank me.

The following paragraph in the "Personal" column of the HERALD caught
my eye. "Listen to this," I said, and read it aloud to my sulky host:

"'To Mademoiselle D.,--There are ninety-and-nine kisses still due me,
and I propose to collect. Box 90, Herald office (up-town), or telephone
18,901 Madison Square. (Private wire.) "'HOUSE-SMITH.'"

Esper Indiman smiled and touched an electric button. "The letters,
Bolder," he said, but the man had anticipated his request, and was
carrying in a salver heaped high with missives and papers.

"I had the personal put in the HERALD the same night of our adventure
at the House-smiths' bazaar," said Indiman. "Also repeated in to-day's
issue."

"It seems to be bearing a fine crop of replies."

"There's a bushel-basket of 'em already--mostly from the alleged
humorist. Or else it's this sort of thing," and he tossed over an
extraordinary piece of stationery--white cream-laid, with edging like a
mourning band, only pink instead of black; think of that!

Of course, the contents of the letter did not belie its exterior. "Mr.
House-smith" was informed that not only ninety-nine, but nine hundred
and ninety-nine, kisses were at his disposal whenever he cared to
communicate with Miss Delicia Millefleurs. The writing was somewhat
shaky, and "communicate" was spelled with one m. Moreover, the general
appearance of the epistle was marred by the presence of a large blot.
But Miss Millefleurs was plainly a young person of instant ingenuity,
and she had turned the disfigurement to good purpose by drawing a
circle around it and labelling it, "One on account."

"Then there's this," said Indiman, and handed me a sheet of foolscap
which had been folded and sealed without an envelope, after the fashion
of our great-grandfathers. On it was pasted a strip of the tape used in
electric-recording instruments, and the characters were those of the
Morse alphabet, rather an unusual sight nowadays, when receiving
messages by sound is the universal practice. Underneath the row of dots
and dashes had been written their English equivalents in Indiman's
small, close handwriting. The transcribed message read:

"One thousand (s) dollars apiece (s) offered for any or all of
ninety-nine (s) kisses, undelivered. Take car No. 6 (s), 'Blue Line'
crosstown, any (s) evening, and get off at West Fourth Street. Purchase
two pounds of the best (s) butter at the corner grocery, and ask for a
purple trading (s) stamp."

"Quite as extravagant as the advertisement that called it forth," I
remarked. "To the wholly impartial mind it seems like nonsense."

"'Ah, but what precious nonsense!'" quoted Indiman, musingly. Then,
suddenly: "Thorp, we need butter; I wish you'd step around to that West
Fourth Street grocery and get a couple of pounds--the best butter,
mind."

I rose. "Certainly; back in half an hour."

"Oh, this evening is time enough. Man, man, can't you see through a
ladder? They're after the girl with the gray eyes, and hope in this way
to get a clew to her whereabouts. Now, you can't fight shadows; the
only chance is to match them against each other. Do I make myself quite
clear?"

"Not in the least."

"I want to know who sends that message, and it's possible that the
answer is right under our eyes." He held up the strip of telegraphic
tape. "Do you see the letter S, enclosed in parentheses, and repeated
before several words?"

"Means nothing, so far as I see."

"Unless it's a habit with the operator to occasionally sound the three
dots that make up the letter S in the Morse alphabet--unconsciously,
you know, and just as another man, in speaking, might stutter or
continually introduce a hesitating 'er' or 'um.'"

"Impossible."

"Nothing is impossible, my dear fellow." Here the bell of the
desk-telephone rang. "For example, this call may be from Mademoiselle
D. herself." He picked up the receiver and held it to his ear. "It is,"
he said, looking over at me.

The weather conditions happened to be particularly favorable for
telephonic communication; I could hear almost as distinctly, standing
on my side of the table, as Indiman himself. I started to walk away,
then I stopped, and announced my intention of listening also; Indiman
nodded assent.

There was unmistakable annoyance and anxiety in the tones of the voice
that greeted us. "I have just seen your absurd advertisement," it
began. "I beg of you to let this matter drop, instantly, finally."

"A request without a reason," answered Indiman, "You owe me something
more than that."

"There is danger--"

"To me or to you?"

"To yourself."

"I am sorry, but you have indicated the sole condition which makes my
withdrawal possible."

A little feminine sigh came from the other end of the wire. "Oh, dear,
it was so stupid of me to say that--to a man!" A pause. Then, in a
slightly vexed tone, "Supposing that it is a question of minding one's
own business."

"Precisely what I am trying to do," said Indiman, humbly. "It is a
settlement that I am proposing."

"I perceive, sir, that I am making myself ridiculous," and the voice
sounded cold and inconceivably distant. "I have the honor to wish you a
very good-morning." The telephone rang off sharply.

I fancy that the same thought was in both our minds: Could this be the
same woman whom we had seen selling her kisses at an East Side bazaar?
The very thought was incredible. And remember that we had not heard her
voice before. Yet neither of us doubted, even for a moment.

"After all, it was only the one kiss that was actually sold and
delivered," said Indiman, half-defiantly. But he need not have defended
her to me.

It was getting to be a very pretty problem as it stood, the one obvious
probability being that it was the girl herself who stood in danger.
What could we do? To discover the nature of the impending peril and,
above all, the personnel of the conspirators. And then what? How were
we to communicate with or warn the girl?--for, of course, she had
called up Indiman from a public pay-station, leaving no clew to her
identity or address. Well, there was still the Personal column in the
HERALD; it had reached her once and might again.

"I am going down-town to the main office of the Western Union," said
Indiman, "and may be away all day. If I shouldn't return by
dinner-time, you will carry out the instructions in the message.
Exactly, remember--car No. 6, and the best butter--each detail may be
important. About nine o'clock should be a good hour."

"I understand," I said, and we parted.

At exactly half after nine that evening I stepped off car No. 6 at the
crossing of West Fourth and Eleventh streets. The grocery was on the
northwest corner, and I entered without hesitation.

Like many other big cities, New York (even excluding the transpontine
suburbs) is a collection of towns and villages rather than a
homogeneous municipality. Chelsea and Harlem and the upper West
Side--all these are distinct and separate centres of community life.
Greenwich Village knows naught of Yorkville, and the East Side Ghetto
has no dealings with the inhabitants of the French quarter.

Now the small area bounded by Waverley Place, Christopher, West Fourth,
and West Eleventh streets is also a law unto itself. The neighborhood
is respectable and severely old fashioned, the houses large and
comfortable, and the resident population almost entirely native
New-Yorkers in moderate circumstances. A village, then, with its shops
and school-houses and churches; it is as provincial in its way as the
Lonelyville of the comic weeklies. The grocery is the village club, at
least for the respectable part of the male population, the men who
would not be seen in a corner saloon. There were half a dozen of the
regulars now in the shop, seated on boxes and chairs around the stove,
for it was a raw and chilly day. They looked up as I entered, but no
one moved or spoke. Undoubtedly my man was in the group, but how to
pick him out. I walked to the counter and addressed the young fellow
who lounged behind it.

"Two pounds of the best butter, please."

"All out," was the unexpected reply.

"All out!" I repeated, stupidly.

"None of the best--that's what I said."

"I wanted a purple trading-stamp," I went on, helplessly.

"Anything over five cents' worth--jar of pickles, if you like."

"No, not that. Here, give me--how much are those cigars?"

"Five and ten."

"Ten cents, then."

The young man handed out the box with a nonchalant air. "Help
yourself," he said.

I selected a cigar. "You're sure you haven't any butter--the BEST
butter?"

"Ah, now, whadjer giving us? This ain't no Tiffany & Co. Best butter?
Uh! P'r'aps you'd like to take a peck of di'monds home wid jer--the
best di'monds, mind, all ready shelled and fried in gold-dust. And just
throw in a bunch of them German-silver banglelets for the salad.
Yessir; charge 'em to Mr. Astor, Astorville, N. G."

The loungers about the stove sniggered audibly, but something in the
fellow's voice made me forget his insolence. I looked up and into the
eyes of Esper Indiman.

I think I did it pretty well--the cool, ignoring stare with which one
is accustomed to put a boor out of countenance.

"Let me have a light," I went on, quietly, and the pretended grocer's
boy was zealous to oblige, scratching the match himself and leaning
across the counter to hold the flame to the cigar end.

"Coach waiting for you in front of the church," he whispered. "Drive
straight home and slowly--to give him a chance."

I left the shop without troubling to glance at the loungers about the
fire; Indiman would attend to that part of the business. The coach was
in waiting at the Baptist Church, and the driver touched his hat when I
mentioned my name. I gave him the address, and told him to drive
slowly. As we turned into Seventh Avenue I looked back and saw a cab
following.

An hour later Indiman came in and joined me in the library. "Now,
then!" I said, impatiently, after waiting to see him mix a high-ball
and light a tremendously black breva. Indiman is a little provoking at
times with his infinite deliberation.

"Where were we?" he began. "Ah, yes, I had my theory about finding the
chap who wrote out that message. It was correct--absolutely so," and
Indiman puffed away in dreamy content, staring up at the ceiling.

"I know Mason of the main Western Union office quite well, and he was
most obliging. Recognized the peculiarity of the telegraphic sending at
once; there actually was a fellow who had a habit of interjecting the
superfluous S in his despatches. Name of Ewall, and he was the operator
in a sub-station near Jefferson Market.

"Well, I posted up there and sounded him. He didn't know anything about
it at first, so I had to scare him a bit; he weakened then, and told me
what I wanted to know.

"Of course it wasn't a real message; he had run it off on his machine
at the request of a queer-looking gentleman who had given him a couple
of dollars for his trouble. According to his description, the man was
stout and dark, with one ear--the left--decidedly larger than the
other."

"Aha! the fellow we saw at the bazaar. But he wasn't in the group about
the grocery stove."

"Of course not, but he had his capper there."

"Go on."

"Well, I thanked Mr. Ewall for his information, and left him with a
solemn admonition to be more careful in the future about doing business
on the side. Then I sat down to consider.

"Now, I was sure that the grocery and its proprietor, the two pounds of
the best butter, and the purple trading-stamp had nothing to do with
the real business of the evening. The game was simply to identify the
'Mr. House-smith' who had advertised for his ninety-and-nine kisses,
and the clap-trap of the message in telegraphic characters, and all the
rest of it, were simply the kind of bait at which so eccentric a person
might be expected to bite. The gentleman with one ear larger than the
other desired to find the elusive Mademoiselle D., erstwhile dispenser
of kisses at an East Side charity bazaar, and, consequently, he was
following up every possible clew. He wanted 'Mr. House-smith,' and I
wanted him.

"Fight shadows with shadows, remember; and so I took service with my
honest friend, David Brown, dealer in groceries at West Fourth and
Eleventh streets. He was rather offish at first, but Mattson, at Police
Head-quarters, had provided me with a special detective badge, and Mr
Brown was led to believe that I was working up a case of graft. He lent
me a jumper, and I was forthwith installed behind the counter.

"Everything went off according to schedule. The 'shadow' had his cab in
readiness and I had mine. He trailed you to No. 4020 Madison Avenue,
and I followed Mr. Shadow to the Central Detective Office. It seems to
have been a case of sleuth against sleuth, with the match all square."

"Anything else?"

"Well, yes. As I came into the house just now, two men were waiting for
me in the vestibule. They went through me; but I didn't seem to have
what they wanted. I still retain possession of my watch and purse."

"So," I said, somewhat helplessly. "What's the next move on the board?"

"It is the last night of the supplementary opera season," answered
Indiman, "and we are going to dress and see what we can of
Tschaikowsky's 'Queen of Spades.' A novelty--first and only performance
outside of Russia, and Ternina heads the cast."

 "There is Mademoiselle D.," remarked Indiman, as his glass swept
the semicircle of the parterre. "The fourth box from the end."

There were but three people in the party--the girl with the gray eyes,
an elderly man with a ribbon in his button-hole, and Jack Crawfurd,
whom everybody knows.

The curtain fell on the third act, and immediately Crawfurd made his
appearance in the omnibus-box where we were sitting.

"Come with me, mes enfants," he said, genially. "It seems that you and
the adorable Countess Gilda are old friends. She commands your instant
attendance. What, man! do you hesitate? I shall lose my head an our
sovereign lady be not instantly obeyed."

The girl with the gray eyes greeted us with smiling unconcern. "Do you
know my uncle?" she asked, and we were forthwith presented to his
Excellency Baron Cassilis, the Russian ambassador to the United States.
Then the Countess Gilda addressed herself squarely to Indiman.

"I am in your debt, Mr. Indiman, and you must permit me to discharge
the obligation. My dear uncle, your purse."

Indiman bowed and accepted the fifty-dollar bill tendered him.

"Now we are quits," she said, smiling.

"Not quite," he answered, hardily. He drew a half-dollar from his
waistcoat-pocket and offered it to her. A flood of color mantled her
brow, but she took the coin and slipped it into her glove. "Well?" she
asked, her small chin defiantly uptilted.

"I have only one question," said Indiman, earnestly. "Is there danger
for you?"

"None in the world."

"Then I am quite satisfied."

She softened at that. "Only a rather aggravating disappointment; it
does not matter now. But why will you men interfere in an unoffending
woman's affairs."

"I had no idea--"

"Of course not. However, we need not enter further into particulars.
Your friend in the orchestra-stall yonder will doubtless enlighten you
later on." A stout man with one ear distinctly larger than the other
deliberately faced about in his seat and directed his glasses at our
box. Immediately upon this the curtain went up on the last act, and his
Excellency held up his hand to command silence.

"Madame," said Indiman, as he handed the Countess Gilda to her
carriage, "I swear to you that the blunder I have unintentionally
committed shall be atoned for. I ask but a hint--the slightest of
clews."

"With pleasure, monsieur. I give you, therefore, the third appearance
of the Queen of Spades. Au revoir! We sail to-morrow by the Cunarder."

The man with the disproportionate ears touched Indiman's elbow. "Beg
pardon, sir," he said, deferentially, "but I shall have to have a word
or two with you."

We drove to the Utinam Club and found a secluded corner. "Now, what is
it, officer?" said Indiman.

The detective looked rather sheepish. "I'm afraid we've made a mess of
it between us. Case of political blackmail, you see, and the young lady
thought she could handle it herself. And so she could have done if we
hadn't butted in, begging your pardon for so saying."

"Get to the point."

"Well, then, it's a question of a letter belonging to a great person in
Roosha--written to or by her don't matter. The letter is here in New
York, and it isn't a question of money with the holder, but power.
There's only one thing to do in that case--steal it, and the Countess
thought she could turn the trick. So she went over on the Rooshan East
Side and laid her pipes to stand next to the old party who holds the
precious document. At the Baron's request I was detailed from the
Central Office and instructed to keep my eyes on the young woman and my
hands off the case. 'Course, then, I couldn't do neither. I lost the
girl when you walked off with her at the house-smiths' bazaar, and then
I had to stick in my oar and answer your personal in the Herald. I laid
what I thought was a pretty smart trap. You fell into it, right enough."

"So you were the fellow who had me searched and held up at my own front
door," said Indiman. "Confound your impudence! What did you expect to
get?"

"Why, the letter, sir. I had figured it out that you was the
black-mailer."

"Oh, the deuce! And in the mean time the real article had been put on
his or her guard by all this hullabaloo, and the Countess Gilda's game
was blocked."

"That's it, sir. A mistake all round."

"I should think so. Well, there's nothing more to be done. That's all
you know about the case?"

"That's all, sir."

"Never heard of the Queen of Spades in this connection?"

"Never, sir."

"Well, good-night, officer. Brownson's your name, eh? I shan't forget
it."

"Good-night, sir."

The night was fine, and we walked home. Over on Eighth Avenue a
masquerade ball was in progress; we passed under the brightly lit
windows of the hall in which it was being held. A masker stood at the
door, a woman dressed to impersonate the Queen of Spades. She waved her
hand to Indiman, who had chanced to look up; then she plucked a rose
from her bodice and tossed it over to him. He caught the flower, as
becomes a gallant man, but immediately walked on.

"That was your cue--the Queen of Spades," I said.

"Not at all. It is only the third time that counts. First at the opera,
and now here; the final and only important appearance is still to come."

At the next corner a wretchedly clad woman sat grinding a small
barrel-organ. "For the love of Mary!" she whimpered, and Indiman thrust
something into her waiting hand. He tried to hide the action, but I had
caught sight of the money--a yellow-backed bill bearing the magic
figures 50.

"Did you notice the tune?" said Indiman, as we walked on. "The
Ninety-and-Nine."




VI

The Queen of Spades


I am very fond of Esper Indiman, but there are times when he is
positively unfit for human society. Last week, for instance, when for
three days on end we did not exchange a single word, not even at
dinner, where the amenities should come on at least with the walnuts. I
grant you that humdrum wears upon the spirit, that the flatness of the
daily road may be a harder thing to get over than even Mr. Bunyan's
hill Difficulty, but for a man to surrender himself mind and body to
solitaire argues weakness. Moreover, it was a ridiculous combination of
the cards that Indiman invariably set himself to resolve; the chances
were at least a hundred to one against the solitaire coming out, and,
indeed, I never saw him get it but once. Under rather curious
circumstances, too--but I won't anticipate; let us begin with the
beginning of the adventure of the Queen of Spades.

You will remember that there was a mislaid letter whose possession had
become a matter of supreme importance to a certain great person in
Russia. The Countess Gilda (she of the Ninety-and-nine Kisses) had been
on the point of obtaining the treasure, but the over-confidence of my
friend Indiman, coupled with the blunders of a stupid detective, had
brought about a premature explosion of the train. To Indiman,
apologetic and remorseful, the Countess Gilda had vouchsafed a single
pregnant utterance--"Wait for the third appearance of the Queen of
Spades." This was his cue; let him make the most of it if he would
repair the mischief that he had unwittingly done.

Now the opera, on the night preceding the Countess's departure for
Europe, had been Tschaikowsky's "Queen of Spades"; the inference was
inevitable that here was the first materialization of our mysterious
heroine. That same evening we had encountered, at an Eighth Avenue
ball, a masker whose costume had been designed upon the familiar model
of the court-card in question; so much for number two. But Fortune had
been almost too kind, and immediately upon this promising beginning she
had withdrawn her smiles. For upward of a month nothing whatever had
happened. As I have said, Indiman played solitaire and I smoked as much
as I could. Dull work for all that it was the end of April, the height
of the Easter season, and New York was at its gayest. A brilliant
show--yes, and the same old one. Did you ever eat a quail a day for
thirty days? Why not for three hundred or three thousand days,
supposing that one is really fond of quail?

For the thirty-fifth consecutive time the solitaire failed to come out.
Indiman gathered the cards, shuffled them with infinite precision, and
handed them to me to cut. I did so. Indiman took the pack and flung it
into the air; the cards fluttered in all directions, and one came
sailing straight for my nose. I put up my hand and caught it--it was
the Queen of Spades.

"Here is the lady for the fateful third time," I remarked, jestingly.
But Indiman was nothing if not serious. He took the card from me and
studied it attentively.

"Rather an interesting face, don't you think?" he said, musingly.
"Somewhat Semitic in physiognomy, you notice; that comes from the
almond-shaped eyes and the abnormally high arch of the brows. Would you
know her in the actual flesh--say, on Broadway? Brunette, of course,
jet-black hair banded a la Merode over the ears, a little droop at the
corners of her mouth. Voila! The Queen of Spades. Let us go out and
look for her."

"A proposition," I remarked, judicially, "that savors of the rankest
lunacy. And yet, why not? The lady certainly made the advances; it is
an equivalent to an invitation to call. Pity she doesn't put her
address on her card."

"Hym!" coughed Indiman, delicately. "That is a difficulty. But not
necessarily an insurmountable one. Let us consult the street directory,
with minds open and unprejudiced, and our faith will be rewarded--doubt
it not.

"We will pass over the numbered streets and avenues," continued
Indiman. "I am not in the mood for mathematical subtleties, although
there is much of virtue in the digit 9, as every adept knows. Names are
our quest to-day, so listen to them as they run--Allen, Bleecker,
Bayard, Dey, Division--now why Division, do you suppose? What was
divided, and who got the lion's share?"

"A delicate allusion to some eighteenth-century graft," I suggested.
"Consult the antiquaries."

"Oh, it's enough for our purpose that the division itself exists; it
must lie below the 'barbed-wire fence,' somewhere across the line. To
speak precisely, Division Street appears to start at Chatham Square,
and it runs eastward to Grand Street. We will take the Third Avenue
Elevated to Chatham Square, and then ask a policeman. Nothing could be
more simple."

Descending the Elevated stairs, Division Street lay right before our
eyes, and further inquiry was superfluous. Indiman's spirits had risen
amazingly. "Why, it's only an elementary exercise," he said, smilingly.
"Divide an East Side street by a pack of cards, and the quotient is the
Queen of Spades; you simply cannot escape from the conclusion. Forward,
then."

Now, Division Street IS something out of the ordinary, as down-town
thoroughfares go. It is the principal highway to that remote Yiddish
country whose capital is William H. Seward Square, and the entire
millinery and feminine tailoring business of the lower East Side is
centred at this its upper end. In the one short block from Chatham
Square to Market Street there are twenty-seven millinery
establishments--count them for yourself--and with one exception the
other shops are devoted to the sale of cloaks and mantuas and
tailor-made gowns. All on the eastward of the street, you notice. There
is a dollar and a shilling side in Division Street, just as elsewhere.

Talk of Bond Street and Fifth Avenue! Where will you find twenty-seven
millinery shops in an almost unbroken row? What a multiplied vista of
delight for feminine eyes--hats, hats, hats, as far as the eye can
reach. Black hats and white hats; red, blue, and greenery-yallery hats;
weird creations so loaded with gimp and passementerie as to certainly
weigh a pound or more; daring confections in gauze and feathers;
parterres of exotic blooms such as no earthly garden ever held; hats
with bows on 'em and hats with birds on 'em, and hats with beasts on
'em; hats that twitter and hats that squawk; hats of lordly velvet and
hats of plebeian corduroy; felt hats, straw hats, chip hats; wide brim
and narrow brim; skewered, beribboned, bebowed--finally, again, just
hats, hats, hats, a phantasmagoria of primary colors and gewgaws and
fallalerie pure and simple, before which the masculine brain fairly
reels. But the woman contemplates the show with serenity imperturbable:
the hat she wants is here somewhere, and it is only a matter of time
and patience to find it.

There is always a Mont Blanc to overtop the lesser Alpine summits--a
Koh-i-noor in whose splendor all inferior radiance is extinguished.

Indiman touched my elbow. "Look at that one," he murmured.

Now that WAS a hat. To describe it--but let me first bespeak the
indulgence of my feminine readers. I am not an authority upon
hats--most distinctly not; and I shall probably display my ignorance
with the first word out of my mouth. But what matter. I am simply
trying to tell of what these poor mortal eyes have seen.

In effect, then, the foundation of the hat appeared to be a black
straw, with a wide, straight brim, the trimming being a gimcrackery
sort of material whose name for the moment has escaped me. Suppose we
call it barege, and let it go at that? The principal ornament was a
large, red apple in wax, pierced by a German-silver arrow, but the
really unique feature of the entire creation was the parasol-like
fringe that depended from the edge of the brim, a continuous row of
four-inch filaments upon which shining black beads were closely strung.
An over-bold device, perhaps, but it certainly caught the eye; there
was a barbaric suggestion in those strings of glittering beads that
made one think of the Congo and of tomtoms beating brazenly in the
moonlight. A hat that WAS a hat, as I have previously remarked, and
Indiman and I gazed upon it with undisguised interest. It is hardly
necessary to add that this particular hat had the place of honor in the
shop-window, it being mounted upon the waxen model of a simpering lady
with flaxen curls and a complexion incomparable. Assuredly, then, the
pearl of the collection.

"L. Hernandez," said Indiman, reading the sign over the door. "Spanish
Jew, I should say. Yes, and the Queen of Spades in person," he added,
in an undertone, for L. Hernandez was standing in the open door-way of
the shop and regarding us with a curious fixity of glance.

Now, through the summer-time it is the custom of the Division Street
modistes to occupy seats placed on the sidewalk. In a business where
competition is so strenuous one must be prepared to catch the customer
on the hop. Even in winter the larger establishments will keep a scout
on duty outside, and the lesser proprietor must, at least, cast an
occasional eye to windward, if the balance of trade is to be preserved.
Undoubtedly Madame Hernandez was taking a purely business observation,
and we had chanced to fall within its focus.

The resemblance was, indeed, striking. There was the banded hair over
the eyes, the slightly drooping mouth, the peculiar upspring of the
eyebrow arch--the Queen of Spades in person, as Indiman had said. And
this was her third appearance.

Indiman removed his hat with a sweep. "Madame," he said, with elaborate
civility, "it is a beautiful day."

"What of it?" retorted L. Hernandez, ungraciously enough. "Or perhaps
the sun isn't shining above Madison Square," she added, sarcastically.
A strange voice this, raucous in quality and abnormally low in pitch.

"I haven't noticed," said Indiman, with undisturbed good-humor. "Alike
upon the just and unjust, you know. Now if you will kindly allow me to
pass--"

"What do you want in my shop?"

"I desire to purchase that hat," replied Indiman, and pointed to the
atrocity in the window.

"It is not for sale."

"I am prepared to pay liberally for what strikes my fancy." He took out
a roll of bills.

"The hat is not for sale."

"Madame," said Indiman, with the utmost suavity, "are you in business
for your health?"

"I am."

"Oh, in that case--"

"You may come inside; it tires me to be on my feet for so long. To my
sorrow I grow stout."

"It is an affliction," murmured Indiman, sympathetically. We followed
her within. The shop was crammed from floor to ceiling with bandboxes
arranged in three or four rows, and glazed presses, filled with
feminine hats and bonnets, lined the walls. Near the window was a small
counter, behind which Madame L. Hernandez immediately installed
herself, and from this vantage-point she proceeded to inspect us with
cool deliberation, fanning herself the while with a huge palm-leaf.
"You wish to buy a hat?" she said, tentatively.

"That one," answered Indiman, stubbornly "--that hat on the model's
head."

"Bah! Senor, it is fatiguing to fight, like children, with pillows in
the dark. You want that Russian letter. Why not say so?"

For a full half-minute their eyes met in silent thrust and parry; it
was to be a duel, then, and each was an antagonist to be respected.

"If it is a question of money--" said Indiman, slowly.

"It is not."

"Then I must take it where I find it."

"So it appears," answered L. Hernandez, placidly. "But you must first
find it. Eh, my bold young man?"

"Be tranquil, madame--"

"I am tranquil. You are but wasting your time."

"I have it to spend in unlimited quantity. I am a solitaire-player."

"Oh, you play solitaire. How many variations do you know?"

"One hundred and thirty-five."

"I can count one hundred and forty-two."

"Including the 'Bridge'?"

"The famous 'Bridge'! Do you know it, then?"

"I learned it from a Polish gentleman in Belgrade."

"It is difficult."

"Enormously so. It may come out once in a hundred times."

Madame L. Hernandez produced a pack of cards from underneath the
counter. "Will you oblige me, senor? I am anxious to see the play."

Indiman proceeded with the explanation. It was too intricate for me to
follow. I could only understand that, with the solitaire properly
resolved, the cards should finally divide themselves into four packs,
headed respectively by the ace of clubs, king of diamonds, queen of
spades, and knave of hearts. Indiman tried it twice, but the
combination would not come out.

"We will try it again to-morrow," said Indiman, rising.

"With pleasure. Good-day, gentlemen. Mind the step."

As we walked towards Chatham Square a stout man joined us, a man with
one ear noticeably larger than the other. "Mr. Indiman--" he began,
deferentially.

"What, you, Brownson?"

"Yes, sir. I have an assignment on this job from the Central Office. I
saw you coming out of L. Hernandez's just now. Smooth old bird, ain't
it?"

"You on this case?" said Indiman, stupefied.

"Yes, sir. You see, the parties concerned finally determined to put it
into our hands, and they'd have been enough sight better off if they'd
done it in the beginning. Bless you! it's no great shakes of a lay-out.
There's the letter--a single sheet of note-paper written in violet ink
on one side only, and we know the party who has it up her sleeve. L.
Hernandez--I don't mind saying it, seeing that you're also on. I'll do
the trick within three days, or you can boil my head for a corned-beef
dinner."

"Well, good luck to you, Brownson," said Indiman, absently. There was a
cab-rank here in Chatham Square, and we drove up-town to the Utinam
Club for a late luncheon. While we were waiting for our filet to be
prepared Indiman wrote a brief note and had it despatched by messenger;
it was addressed, as he showed me, to Madame L. Hernandez,--Division
Street. "I'm not going to have that booby upset the apple-cart for a
second time," he said, savagely. "Now we shall have to wait for at
least three days."

This was on Monday; on Friday we presented ourselves again to Madame L.
Hernandez. She received us politely, almost graciously; she sat in the
great chair behind the counter, engaged in the truly feminine
occupation of putting up her hair in curl-papers. A pad of stiff, white
writing-paper lay on the counter before her, and from it she tore the
strips as she needed them.

"I am tired of these bandeaux," she explained, smilingly. "My friends
tell me that curls will become me infinitely better."

"Your friends have reason," acquiesced Indiman; "but tell me, madame,
did you receive my note?"

"I did, senor, and I return you a thousand thanks. Ah, how these pigs
of detectives have tortured me!--you would never believe it. Twice my
apartments, at the back there, have been entered and ransacked from end
to end; I even suffered the indignity of being personally searched by a
dreadful newspaper woman who had answered my advertisement for
'Improvers Wanted.' Chloroformed in broad daylight in my own house!"

"But they didn't get the letter?"

"I was not born yesterday, senor."

"Good!" said Indiman, heartily. "What imbeciles policemen can be!"

"What, indeed! Behold, senor, I show you the ruin wrought by these
swine. This way."

L. Hernandez rose, waddled stiffly to the back room, and threw open the
door. "There!" she exclaimed, dramatically.

Evidently these were the lady's living apartments--a bed-chamber and a
smaller room at the left, in which were a gas-range and some smaller
culinary apparatus. It was plain that the intruders had made thorough
work in their search. The carpet had been removed and the flooring
partially torn up; the walls had been sounded for secret receptacles,
the pictures stripped of their backing, and the chairs and bedstead
pulled half to pieces. "Not a square inch of anything have they left
unprobed by their accursed needles," said L. Hernandez, furiously. "It
will take me a month, stiff as I am, to get things to rights."

"An outrage!" said Indiman, soothingly. "Shall we have a try at
crossing the 'Bridge'?" And forthwith they sat down to the great
solitaire with the utmost amity. But again it did not come out; the
combinations were insoluble.

The next day we paid another visit to L. Hernandez.

"The curl-papers do not seem to be very effective," remarked Indiman,
glancing at the familiar smooth bands of hair drawn straight down from
the forehead and over the ears.

"Ah, these wretched bandeaux!" sighed madame; "they are intractable. I
shall have to wear my curl-papers by day as well as by night. Excuse
me, gentlemen, for a few minutes," and she disappeared into the back
room, to shortly reappear with the rebellious bands tightly swathed in
a dozen little rolls of twisted paper. "Again the impassable 'Bridge,'"
she said, gayly, and the pair wrestled half a dozen times with the
problem--of course, unsuccessfully.

On the following day the comedy was repeated.

"Madame," said Indiman, gravely, "you have again forgotten your
curl-papers."

"Senor, my memory is undoubtedly failing; I go to repair the omission."
Re-enter madame in curl-papers, and then the "Bridge" as before; da
capo for a week on end.

"It seems impossible to get that accursed combination," said Indiman,
and he threw down the cards. Madame L. Hernandez smiled, and there was
a little silence.

"Madame," said Indiman.

"Senor."

"You are not treating me fairly. You have allowed those stupid
detectives to search your apartments, and I demand an equal privilege."

"You shall have it, senor. I am going to make a complaint of the affair
at Police Headquarters. Perhaps Senor Thorp will kindly accompany me?"

"Excellent! I will remain here, and if the letter is within these four
walls I shall find it."

"My best wishes, senor."

I called a coach. Madame arrayed herself in a fur cloak and crowned
herself, curl-papers and all, with that atrocious hat from the window
stock, a grotesque figure of a woman in all conscience. But I had
nerved myself for the ordeal, and we drove away amid the jeers and
laughter of the street crowd. In an hour we returned. Indiman was
placidly smoking and working on his solitaire.

"You were successful, senor?"

"No, but I have hopes."

"Ah! Well, good-day, gentlemen. Come again."

"Of course there was nothing," said Indiman to me as we drove home. "I
even went through every bandbox."

"Yet you have hopes?"

"Yes."

It was the second day following, and we were calling again upon L.
Hernandez. There was the usual badinage about the curl-papers, and
madame retired to her private apartments, carefully closing the door
behind her.

"Now!" said Indiman. Hastily he pulled forward a cheval-glass, placing
it upon a particular spot and tilting the mirror to a certain exact
angle. When finally it was adjusted to his satisfaction, he motioned to
me to come and look. In the mirror was plainly visible a vertically
reversed reflection of L. Hernandez. Standing in front of a long
dressing-glass in her bedroom, she deliberately removed her chevelure
in its entirety and tossed it on the table. It was a wig, then; but I
was hardly prepared for the secret that it had concealed--for the
close-cropped head, with its straw-colored hair, was unmistakably that
of a man.

"Look! look!" whispered Indiman.

From a drawer L. Hernandez had taken a second wig already furnished
with curl-papers; the adjustment took but a minute or two; the door
opened, and she reappeared, ready for the inevitable solitaire.

On the way home that night Indiman stopped at Police Headquarters, but
he did not see fit to make the nature of his inquiries known to me. On
the subject of the apparition in the mirror, however, he was more
communicative.

"As you know," he said, "the partition that divides madame's private
apartments from the shop does not extend to the ceiling; there is a gap
of some three feet. I had previously noticed the cheval-glass in the
bedroom; it was a natural presumption that L. Hernandez would take her
stand in front of it while engaged in making her toilet. Now this glass
is tilted at a sharp angle, and consequently the reflection must be
projected upward to a particular point on the ceiling. Supposing a
small looking-glass to be fixed at this point, the rays impinging upon
it will be cast downward and ON OUR SIDE OF THE PARTITION, for the
angle of reflection is always equal to that of incidence. We have,
therefore, only to place in position a second cheval-glass, arranged at
the proper inclination, to obtain a reproduction of the original image,
although, of course, it will appear to us as upside-down. I have only
to add that the day you escorted madame to Police Headquarters I took
the opportunity to fasten a small mirror on the ceiling, trusting that
it would not be noticed. Nor was it; the trap worked perfectly--an
optical siphon, as it may be called--and the secret was mine."

"And now?"

"Wait until to-morrow," said Indiman.

For the fiftieth time the game of solitaire was in progress, and on
this occasion it seemed as though the combinations were actually coming
out. Remember, that in the final fall of the cards it was necessary
that they should be in four packs, headed by the ace of clubs, king of
diamonds, queen of spades, and knave of hearts. Already the first two
ranks had been completed; it all depended upon the disposition of the
few remaining cards.

"The queen of spades is buried," said L. Hernandez, with a sneer. "You
have failed again."

"I think not," replied Indiman, calmly. "I am sure that the last card
is the knave of hearts." This was my cue. I stepped to the door and
made an imperceptible signal to Brownson, who, with two other
plain-clothes men, was lounging in a door-way across the street. They
seemed eternally slow in obeying; I felt the muscles in my throat
contracting with nervous excitement as I turned again to watch the
solitaire.

But two cards remained to be played; they lay face downward upon the
table. If the upper one were the queen of spades, the packets would be
completed in their proper order and the solitaire would be made; if it
were the knave of hearts, the game would again be lost. Slowly--oh, so
slowly--Indiman turned the first card.

"Knave!" shouted L. Hernandez, exultingly. Then she stopped and went
white. It was not the knave of hearts, but the queen of spades, and
over it had been pasted a small carte-de-visite photograph--that of a
man dressed in the coarse uniform of one of the Russian penal
settlements. With lightning swiftness Indiman leaned forward and
twitched the wig from L. Hernandez's head; the man himself sat there
before our eyes.

Brownson and his bull-dogs stood at the door, revolvers in hand. But
there was no need. The squat, ungainly figure had fallen forward upon
the counter, crushing the horrible nightmare of a hat of which I have
so often spoken, and which, quite by chance, as it seemed, had been
lying there. Brownson sprang forward and raised the limp body. The red,
waxen apple had been broken into a dozen pieces. Among them lay the
fragments of a fragile glass phial, and the smell of almonds was in the
air.

"Prussic acid," said Brownson, sententiously. "He wasn't the kind to be
taken alive."

Indiman mechanically turned over the last card; it was the knave of
hearts, and the famous solitaire of the "Bridge" had been made at last.
He slipped the cards into his pocket and rose to go. "Brownson," he
said, with a little catch in his voice, "I didn't think that it would
come to this, but it had to be, I suppose. Have him put away decently,
and send the account to me."

"Very good, sir. But ain't it a pity about that letter. However, we can
take a good look now, and maybe we'll turn it up yet."

"Perhaps so," said Indiman.

"His real name was Gribedyoff, and he was implicated in the
assassination of Prince Trapasky," said Indiman to me as we sat over
our cigars that night. "A desperate fellow, one of the 'Blacks,' you
know. I picked his picture out in a moment at Police Headquarters,
after seeing his reflection in the mirror. I knew it was necessary to
surprise him, and so I borrowed the photograph and used it to
transmogrify the queen of spades card. Just for an instant he lost his
nerve, but that was enough."

"But, as Brownson said, how about the letter?"

Indiman drew from his pocket the wig, to which the curl-papers were
still attached. He unrolled one and showed it to me. I could see that
the strip was written in French on one side of the paper and in violet
ink. "It will be easy enough to piece it together again," he said.
"Plain enough now, isn't it, why L. Hernandez cared not at all how
often Brownson's men rummaged table-drawers and chair-seats. The letter
was safe until the time should come to use it. Only it never came."

"I suppose you are going abroad?"

"I shall sail Thursday."

"And you will be gone how long?"

"That depends, doesn't it, upon the pleasure of that most gracious lady
the Countess Gilda. I may be back in a fortnight, and in that case I
will make an engagement with you. We will take a ride together on a
trolley-car."

"Agreed," said I.

It was a warm afternoon in the middle of May, and I was lounging in the
deserted common room of the Utinam Club when Esper Indiman walked in.
We shook hands.

"You landed to-day?" I asked.

"Yes, by the Deutschland."

It was impossible for me to utter the inquiry that rose to my lips.
Indiman hesitated just a trifle, then he went on:

"I delivered my letter to the Countess, and she was most obliged. She
asked me to stay on, but I had a previous engagement to plead: you
remember that I had agreed to go on a trolley-ride on or about this
date?"

"I remember," I answered. "Let us interview Oscar, then, upon the
subject of dinner; it will be cooler up at Thirty-fourth Street.
Afterwards we will have our adventure on the trolley."

Well, we went and had our dinner, but, as you shall see, the
trolley-ride had to be indefinitely postponed. We had started down
Fifth Avenue, and near Madison Square we ran squarely into Indiman's
cousin, George Estes. He was standing near a brilliantly illumined
shop-window, and gazing intently at a small object that lay in the
hollow of his hand.

"Oh, it's you," he said, absently. Then, with a little laugh, "What do
you think of this?" He held out to us a small button fashioned of some
semiprecious stone like Mexican opal; it glowed with an elusive reddish
lustre.

"It looks almost alive," commented Indiman.

"The vital spark, eh? Well, you're not so far out, for it means a man's
life."

"What is it, George?" asked Indiman, gravely.

"Not to-night, old chap. It may be a mistake--probably is. Or say that
I was kidding you."

"That won't do, George. You've said both too much and too little. Cab
there!" he called, and a hansom drew up to the curb.

"You'll excuse me, Thorp--a family affair." He motioned to the boy to
enter; he obeyed, sulkily enough, and they drove off.




VII

The Opal Button


Now, as a matter of fact, I had no part in the affair of the opal
button; for on the very next day following our meeting with Estes I
came down with typhoid and spent the next two months in the hospital. I
saw little of Indiman during that time, but his seeming neglect was
fully explained by the story he told me the night I was well enough to
get back to 4020 Madison Avenue.

"You remember, of course," began Indiman, "that I went off with Estes
that May evening with just an apology to you about a family affair.
Really, I knew nothing; but the boy's manner struck me as peculiar,
and, while the incident of the opal button was trifling in itself, I
was sure that there was something behind it. But when I plumped the
question squarely at Estes he had nothing to say except that the jewel
had been slipped into his hand while he stood looking into a
shop-window. Where it came from he did not know; what it meant he
either could not or would not tell. So I had to drop the subject for
the time. But it came up again of its own accord four days later, the
exact date being May 15th. So much by way of preamble; the story proper
I will read from my notes.

"'De Quincey was right, and murder should be a fine art. But the
Borgias--only amateurs! The far-famed Aqua Tofana--pooh! Any chemist
will put it up for ten cents. Only be careful how you use it. Chemical
analysis has advanced somewhat since the day of the divine Lucrezia,
and a jury would convict without leaving their seats.'

"'Rather rough on your business, I should think,' said Estes, speaking
somewhat thickly, for the port had stopped with him overfrequently of
late. 'Is poisoning really out of date?' he continued.

"'As absolutely as crinoline and the novels of G. P. R. James,'
answered our host, lightly. But I, who was watching him closely, saw
his eyes harden. Estes had said more than one imprudent thing that
evening, and this time he had gone too far. I would have to get the boy
away somehow.

"There were three of us dining with Balencourt that evening at his
chambers in the Argyle--Estes, Crawfurd, and myself; and as usual we
had had an excellent dinner, for Balencourt knew how to live. Who was
Balencourt? Well, nobody could answer that precisely, but his letters
of introduction had been unexceptionable and his checks were always
honored at Brown Brothers. Moreover, Crawfurd had met him frequently at
the Jockey Club in Paris, and there was his name on White's books for
any one to read. A man of forty-five perhaps, clean-shaven, well set
up, an inveterate globe-trotter, a prince among raconteurs, and the
most astounding polyglot I have ever met. I myself have heard him talk
Eskimo with one of Peary's natives, and he had collated some of his
researches into Iranic-Turanian root-forms for the Philological
Society. But let us go back to our walnuts.

"Crawfurd picked up the thread. 'Then the science of assassination is a
lost art,' he said, tentatively.

"'Oh, I did not say that,' replied Balencourt, carelessly. 'There are
other ways--better ones.'

"'You mean beyond the risk of detection?'

"'Perfectly.'

"'Eliminating the toxic poisons of all kinds?'

"'If you like.'

"'I doubt it.' said Crawfurd, with a little hesitation.

"'And I deny it,' interrupted Estes, rudely, and stared straight at
Balencourt. A quick glance answered his challenge; it was like the
engaging of rapiers.

"'Perhaps Mr. Estes desires proof,' said Balencourt, slowly.

"'I do.'

"'Let us say between--'

"'To-night and the 1st of August.'

"'That will suit me perfectly. My passage is booked on the Teutoninc
for the following Wednesday.'

"'It is also the day set for my wedding to Miss Catherwood,' said
Estes, quietly.

"Balencourt took it admirably. 'So you have obtained the decision at
last,' he said, smiling lightly. 'My felicitations.'

"Crawfurd rose to his feet. The jovial flush had strained away from his
fat cheeks, and his jaw hung loose and pendulous. 'For God's sake,
fellows--' he began, but Balencourt stopped him with a gesture.

"'This is a private matter between Mr. Estes and myself, as he knows
full well. So far as you and Mr. Indiman are concerned, call it what
you like--a duel, or, better yet, a sporting proposition.'

"'The stakes?' put in Crawfurd, feebly, for, shaken as he was, he could
still grasp at the definite idea included in the last-named
alternative. Sport and a wager--now he understood.

"'The stakes?' repeated Balencourt. 'Well, they are hardly of a nature
that either Mr. Estes or myself can intrust them to the keeping of a
third party. But rest assured that the loser will pay; it is a debt of
honor.'

"Up to this moment I had kept silence, but now I must make my one try.
'He is but a boy,' I said, leaning my elbows on the table and seeking
to plumb the soul-depths in the cold, gray eyes of the man who sat
opposite to me. But Balencourt only laughed amusedly.

"'Then he should not assume a man's--'

"'Will you come now, Cousin Esper?' interrupted Estes. He pushed his
chair noisily back, and we all rose.

"'You won't wait for coffee?' said our host. 'Just as you please.' He
touched the call-button, and Jarman entered to help us on with our
top-coats. Par parenthese, how account for the anomaly of this
scoundrel of a Balencourt possessing the most perfect of serving-men?
There never was anybody who could roll an umbrella like Jarman, and I
have been around a lot in my time. After the catastrophe I tried my
best to locate him, but without success. He was gone; the pearl had
dropped back into the unfathomable depths of ocean. Perhaps he followed
his master.

"The door closed behind us, and we three stood in the street. 'A cab?'
I queried, and a passing hansom swung in towards the curb.

"'I'd rather walk along with you, Cousin Esper,' said Estes. 'Jump in,
Mr. Crawfurd, and we'll pick you up later at the club.'

"Crawfurd nodded and was forthwith driven away. I turned to Estes.

"'What is it, George?' I asked. 'Remember, there's Elizabeth to be
considered in this.'

"Now, while Estes is a second cousin of mine, 'Betty' Catherwood is my
niece, and so I considered that I had a double right to stick in my
oar. But I wasn't prepared for the depth of trouble that I encountered
in the glance George Estes turned on me. 'So bad as that!' I finished,
lamely.

"'It won't take long in the telling,' began the boy, desperately. 'You
remember that after I left Princeton I went to Germany for a two years'
course in international law under Langlotz; it was a pet idea of the
pater's.'

"I nodded.

"'Well, we all make fools of ourselves at one time or another, and here
is where I donned the cap and bells. You have heard'--here he lowered
his voice--'of the "Dawn."'

"'The revolutionary society?'

"'Yes; it's the active branch of the "Sunrise League"--the practical
work, you know. I joined it.'

"I had nothing to say. George laughed a little dismally and went on:

"'Absurd, wasn't it? I, a citizen of the best and freest country on
earth to be making common cause with a lot of crack-brained theorists
who would replace constitutional government by the "Lion's Mouth" and
the "Council of Ten"--a world ruled by a secret terror. But it seemed
all right at the time. What was my life or any one man's life to the
progress of civilization? It was only when I came to look at the means
apart from the end that I realized the horrible fallacy of it all.'

"'You withdrew, of course.'

"'You don't quite understand. One doesn't withdraw from the "Dawn." He
may cease to be identified actively with the propaganda, but he is
still subject to be called upon for a term of "service"--that's the
ghastly euphemism they use. You remember this and the night I received
it?'

"He took a pasteboard box from his pocket and handed it to me. It
contained a small, red button, fashioned out of some semiprecious stone
resembling Mexican opal.

"'It was the first summons,' continued Estes, 'and within three days I
should have been on my way to Berlin--to receive my instructions.'

"'You refused, then?'

"'There was Betty,' said the boy, simply.

"'You must understand,' he went on, 'that this "service" can only be
demanded once of a member. He may refuse compliance, if he chooses, but
in that case there is a forfeit to be paid, and it becomes due after
the third warning.'

"'Well?'

"'Must be paid, you understand. If not by the recalcitrant himself,
then by the agent of the "Forty" through whom the summons comes. That
makes it clear, doesn't it--Balencourt and his debt of honor?'

"'When did you know--about him, I mean?'

"'Here is the second button. Balencourt slipped it into my hand just
before we went out to dinner to-night.'

"'It is incredible. Balencourt is a man and you are but a boy. To take
advantage of an act of youthful folly--'

"'You forget that it is his life or mine,' interrupted Estes, quietly.

"'But, George, it is unthinkable. When he knows--but you did tell
him--about Betty--'

"'That's just it, old chap. Balencourt asked her to marry him a week
ago, just before I received the first red button.'

"The monstrousness of the thing struck me all of a heap. 'The police,'
I said, vaguely, but Estes shook his head.

"'It is but postponing the bad quarter of an hour,' he said, gently,
'and I don't think that I could put up with this sort of thing
indefinitely. Moreover, it wouldn't be fair to--to Betty.

"'No,' he went on, 'it's better to have a limit set, just as it is
now--for at least Balencourt will keep his word. Once past the 1st of
August, I am safe.'

"'We'll work within the limit, then,' I said, cheerfully. 'If we
three--Crawfurd, you, and I--can't match wits with one polyglot son of
the "Dawn," we might as well let the bottom drop out of the Monroe
Doctrine and be done with it.'

"We had arrived at the club. For an instant our hands met. 'Not a word
to Betty,' he whispered.

"'Of course.' Then we went up-stairs to the pipe-room, where we found
Crawfurd sitting gloomily over his fourth Scotch-and-soda. The clocks
were striking three when we took Estes back to his apartments, and we
both spent the night with him. The issue had been fairly joined, and it
was exactly two months and a half to the 1st of August.

"The rest of May passed absolutely without incident, and sometimes it
was difficult to believe in the reality of the contest in which we were
engaged. Yet we omitted no precaution, and during the whole fortnight
Estes was never for a moment out of the sight of either Crawfurd or
myself. But no; I'll correct myself there, for we had to allow him an
hour and a half every evening with Betty, and I used to mount guard in
the street outside, measuring the cold and unsympathetic flag-stones.
And no thanks for it, either; indeed, Betty's manner was distinctly
top-loftical whenever we chanced to meet, she being a young person of
discernment, and perfectly well aware that we were keeping her in the
dark about something. But it helped George to forget, and so I counted
it in with the rest of the day's work and held my peace.

"As for the rest, there was nothing to be done except to keep a couple
of 'shadows' on Balencourt, and we had a full account of his movements
by eight o'clock every night--a regular ship's chart worked out with
time-stamps and neat entries in red ink, after the accustomed fashion
of Central Office men. So May and the first two weeks in June dragged
uneventfully along; the period of stress was already half over. Then
came Monday, the 15th of June, and with it a little shock. Our man--I
mean Balencourt--concluded to disappear, and he did it as effectually
as though there were no such thing as a 'shadow' in existence. When the
head-sleuth came that night to report his discomfiture, I cut him short
in his theorizing and asked for the facts. But there was only the
one--Balencourt was certainly non est, and that was all there was to
say. Whereupon we banished the 'shadows' to the outer darkness whence
they had come and convened our original council of war.

"One thing was plain--the danger of remaining longer in the city. There
are so many things that may happen in a crowd, and especially if our
friend Balencourt formed part of that unknown quantity. There is always
a chance of a chimney-pot tumbling about one's ears or of being run
down by some reckless chauffeur. And who is to know the truth?
Accidents will happen; they are wilful things and insist upon keeping
themselves in evidence. Imprimis, then, to get out of town. But where?

"'Hoodman's Ledge,' began Crawfurd, a little doubtfully, but I caught
him up with joyful decision.

"'The very thing,' I said. 'I'll send a wire to the caretaker to-night,
and we'll be off by Thursday. I invite you all--for six weeks. Why, of
course, George, that includes Betty and her mother; they were to come
to me, anyway, in July.'

"Now, Hoodman's Ledge is one of the innumerable small islands that dot
the Maine coast above Portland. A few years ago the fancy had taken me
to buy the island--it was only three acres in area--and later on I had
put up a house, nothing very elegant, but everything for comfort, a
model bachelor's establishment. For our present need no better asylum
could have offered. The island was small and occupied only by my own
domestic establishment. It lay in the bight of Oliver's Bay, quite a
mile from the nearest shore, and there was but one other bit of land
anywhere around--an uninhabited islet known as 'The Thimble,' that lay
a quarter of a mile due east. Surely this isolation promised security.
Here, if anywhere, we might snap our fingers at the machinations of M.
Balencourt and the mysterious 'Forty.' It would be rather cold off the
Maine coast during this unseasonable summer, but there were fireplaces
in plenty and stacks of drift-wood. The only real difficulty lay in
persuading my estimable sister to cut short her Newport visit and come
to me a month earlier than usual.

"Finally, I left it to Betty to manage. 'I can't explain myself any
clearer, my dear,' I ended up, rather lamely, 'but it will be better
for George. Will you do it?'

"'So you won't trust me with the secret? No; you needn't protest--there
is a secret, and I ought to know it. But you have put it so cleverly
that I haven't any choice in the matter. "Better for George" indeed!
Very good, mon oncle; I'll obey orders. But remember that it will be
the worse for you later on, unless you can show good and sufficient
reason for this ridiculous mystery. Poor, dear mamma! how she will hate
to be plucked up--like an early radish.' And thereupon Miss Betty
sailed away with her small head tilted skyward.

"But she did manage it, and by Thursday night the party was actually
assembled at 'The Breakers.' There was a sou'easter on that night, but
the drift-wood burned stoutly in the wide chimney-piece, with now and
then a cheerful sputter as a few stray drops sought to immolate
themselves in the green and purple flames.

"'Not so bad--eh, mamma?' said Betty, as she slipped another pillow
behind Mrs. catherwood's back and handed her the last volume of 'Gyp,'
with the pages neatly cut. And then she actually smiled over at me. I
think I am beginning to understand Betty.

"Again I pass over many uneventful days. 'Nothing doing,' as Crawfurd
put it, and laisser-faire was a good enough motto for our side of the
house. The two children, of course, were blissfully happy.

"Three, four, nearly six weeks, and no sign or sound from M'sieur
Balencourt. Not so surprising, after all, seeing that we were living on
an island surrounded on all sides by deep water and no land within a
mile except that little dot called 'The Thimble.' And while we didn't
make any parade of our precautions, Crawfurd and I kept watch and
watch, just as we used to do in the old Alert, on the China station,
twenty-odd years ago. Moreover, the gardener and my boatman were men
who could keep their eyes open and their mouths shut, and, finally,
there were the four dogs--two Great Danes, a collie, and 'Snap,' the
fox-terrier. It would have been a bold man who sought to visit
Hoodman's Ledge, uninvited, during that particular month and a half.

"It was the morning of the 1st of August, and I was lounging on the
piazza, Crawfurd being on duty at the time. The warm weather had come
at last. The air was so soft and delightful that the scientific review
I had been reading slipped from my hand and I gave myself up to
indolence, gazing lazily at the white pigeons that were trading about
the lawn, between the boat-house and a rustic pavilion overlooking the
tennis-court. One bird I marked in particular, admiring his strong and
graceful sweeps and dips as he circled about, possessed, as it were,
with the pure joy of motion. I followed him as he sank down on a long
slant to the lawn, swift as a bolt from the blue; then I rubbed my eyes
in amaze. It was a pigeon of snowy whiteness that an instant before had
been flying free; it was a coal-black nondescript that now fluttered
feebly once or twice and then lay still on the gravelled path, close to
the stone sun-dial. I ran down the steps and bent over the pitiful
thing. Pfui!--the bird was but a charred and blackened lump of dead
flesh. There was a disagreeable odor of burned feathers in the air.
Mechanically my eye fell on the sun-dial; there was a spot the size of
a silver dollar on the side of the pedestal where the stone had
crumbled and disintegrated, as though it had been placed at the focus
of some immensely powerful burning-glass. I stepped behind the sun-dial
and looked out to sea. And there, in line with the pedestal of the dial
and the dead bird on the path, lay 'The Thimble.'

"Now, as I have said, 'The Thimble' was a rocky islet only a few rods
in extent, but densely wooded with spruce and blue-gum. The general
shape of the rock was that of a lady's thimble; hence the name. Rather
a picturesque object in the seascape, but, of course, utterly valueless
except for occasional picnic uses--a bit of No Man's Land whose purpose
in the economy of nature had hitherto remained unfulfilled. But now?

"I went back to the piazza and caught up a pair of stereo-binoculars
that were lying on the table. There, shining like a star through the
close curtain of green that veiled 'The Thimble,' was the projecting
end of a highly polished tube of steel. And even as I gazed a man's
face peered out as though in the act of sighting--Aram Balencourt!

"Then I understood. The tube was the means of projecting some
enormously powerful heat-beam whose nature must be akin to that of the
so-called X-ray. The article I had been reading not ten minutes
ago--what was the title?--'Radium, the Wizard Metal'--that
incomprehensible substance, forever sending forth its terrible
emanations, yet never diminished by even the ten-thousandth part of a
grain--a natural force whose properties and functions were but
imperfectly understood, even by the learned men who had succeeded in
isolating it, an agent of such enormous potency that an ounce or two
might serve to put a battle-ship out of commission--a couple of pounds
and the universe itself were endangered. Even now from that steel tube,
sighted so carefully on the pedestal of the sun-dial, billions of ions
might be rushing, invisible to the eye, but certain death to whatever
of animal existence they chanced to encounter. There was the pigeon
lying dead on the walk.

"'Do hurry, George,' called out Betty's thin, sweet treble. She stood
at the entrance to the pavilion and waved a tennis-racquet impatiently.

"'Coming,' was the cheerful response, and Estes turned the corner of
the house. He took the gravelled path at full speed. In an instant or
two at the farthest he would be passing between the sun-dial and the
dead pigeon, in line with those deadly radiations.

"We had been playing a little single-wicket earlier in the day, and a
cricket-ball lay on the wicker table at my hand. I could not have
uttered a word or a cry to save my life--to save his--but instinct held
true. With a full, round-arm sweep the ball left my hand, catching the
boy squarely on the forehead. He fell within his stride.

"Betty was with us on the instant, but I seized and held her despite
her struggles. Naturally, she thought I had gone mad. Then I looked
over again at 'The Thimble,' just in time to see a sheet of
palest-colored flame shoot up from the island. The dense mass of green
foliage seemed to wither and consume away within the tick of a clock.
Through the glass I caught a glimpse of a dark figure that rolled down
to the water's edge, clutching feebly at the shifting shingle. Perhaps
a log, after all--it lay so still.

"An instant later 'The Thimble' disappeared in a cloud of grayish
vapor, the dull sound of an explosion filled the ear, and the ground
under our feet trembled. There was nothing to be seen, even with the
glass, save a light scum covering the water and some fragments of
charred tree branches. But the air about us was full of a fine dust
that powdered Betty's hair, as though for a costume ball, and made me
cough consumedly.

"Naturally, there were quite a number of explanations to make to Miss
Betty after George had been resuscitated--a slightly disfigured hero,
but still in the ring--but I spare you. The dear girl listened quietly,
but at the end she began to tremble, and I won't say but that she cried
a bit. It doesn't matter if she did, and I think we all began to feel a
little queer when we came to think it over. However, it WAS over--no
possible doubt about that.

"'One thing I don't understand,' said Crawfurd. 'There were to be three
warnings, and Estes only received two of the red buttons.' Whereupon
Betty blushed, and drew a little package from her pocket.

"'It came last night directed to George,' she said, 'but I forgot to
give it to him. It broke open in my pocket and it contained this.' She
held out to us the third red button. That was decent of Balencourt--to
have given the last warning.

"There is only one possible hypothesis to account for the catastrophe.
Balencourt was dealing with a terrible force, whose nature was but
partially understood, even by science. He had intended to use it to
fulfil the vengeance of the 'Dawn' but something had happened, and in
an instant the monster had turned and rended its master. That is all
that we can know.

"Two days later George and Betty were married, for they stuck to the
original date in spite of the fact that George, with a lump on his
forehead as big as the cricket-ball itself, did not make a particularly
presentable bridegroom. I carried an umbrella at the function whose
incomparable rolling was remarked upon by all. Need I say that it was
the same umbrella that Balencourt's man, Jarman, had manipulated for me
that fateful evening when we dined at the Argyle. I shall never unroll
that umbrella, even at the cost of a wetting. To me it is a memento."

"There's melodrama for you," said Indiman, a little shamefacedly as he
finished. "But one feels differently, you know, about taking chances
where a nice girl like Betty is concerned. Let me see; it's still
early. Do you feel up to taking that long-deferred ride on a
trolley-car? Good! We'll take the cross-town over to Eighth Avenue and
get into the heart of it at once."

"That's an unlucky number," said Indiman, as we boarded a car. "Sixteen
hundred and twenty-four--the sum of the units is equal to thirteen."

"You're going to lose some money," I suggested.

"The tip points that way," he replied.




VIII

The Tip-top Tip


Do you know Abingdon Square? It is a small, irregularly shaped triangle
of asphalt situated on the lower West Side, and at the
intersecting-point of Eighth Avenue and Hudson Street. The houses that
front upon it have seen better days. Many of them are now the quarters
of cheap political clubs or centres of foreign revolutionary
propaganda. It is a neighborhood that has finally lost all semblance to
gentility and has become frankly and unreservedly shabby. A square,
mind you, and not a park, for there is neither blade of grass nor tree
in all of its dreary expanse. Half a block to the north lies a minute
gore of land surrounded by an iron fence, and here are flowers and
greenery upon which the eye may rest and be satisfied. But in Abingdon
Square proper there is only the music-stand, that occupies the middle
of the miniature plaza, a hideous wooden structure in which one of the
city bands plays on alternate Sunday afternoons during the summer.
However, open space counts in the city, and the air circulates a trifle
more freely through the square than it does in the side streets--at
least, that is the opinion of the neighborhood people, and they flock
there on a hot night like seals at a blow-hole. Even the submerged
tenth must come up to breathe now and then. During the dreadful passage
of a hot wave from the West one may count them by the dozens, coatless
and even shirtless wretches, lying prone on the flag-stones like fish
made ready for the grid. Occasionally, a street-cleaning "White Wings"
will be compassionate enough to open a fire-hydrant, under pretence of
flushing the gutters, and then, for a few minutes, there is joy in
Abingdon Square. Women line the curb, cooling their feet in the rushing
flood; the men light their pipes and contentedly watch the children as
they paddle about. There is the echo of mountain brooks in the gush of
the water as it roars from the hydrant. With eyes tight closed one may
conjure up the phantasma of green leaves waving and of meadows
knee-deep with lush grasses and starred with ox-eyes. Such is Abingdon
Square on a night in early August when first the dog-star begins to
rage.

Now my friend Esper Indiman is a social philosopher; life in all its
phases interests him tremendously. Consequently, he likes to take long
rides on trolley-cars. He calls them his vaudeville in miniature, and
sometimes the performance is amusing--I acknowledge it freely. But
to-night the actors were few and the play dull. I began to yawn. The
car, one of the Eighth Avenue line bound down-town, swung round a curve
into Abingdon Square, and Indiman touched my arm.

"What's going on over there?" he said.

Although it was not a concert night, there was a crowd around the
band-stand. It looked as though some one was haranguing the assemblage
from the vantage-point of the music pavilion--a local political orator
or perhaps a street preacher. "Salvation Army," I suggested.

"Shall we take a look?" I nodded, and we alighted and pushed our way to
the front.

It was a young man who stood there, rather a nice-looking chap, with a
broad forehead from which the thin, fair hair fell away in a tumbled
wave. He was attired in evening clothes, assuredly an unusual sight in
Abingdon Square, where they do not dress for dinner, and the expression
upon his countenance was that of recklessness tempered with a certain
half-humorous melancholy. "One dollar," he repeated, as we came within
sight and hearing. "Do I hear no other bid? One dollar, one dollar.
Will any gentleman make it a half?"

"I'll give fifty for your skull alone," spoke up a youngish,
sallow-faced man who stood directly opposite the stand. "On condition,"
he added, in a lower tone, "that the goods are delivered at Bellevue
before the end of the week. Foot of Twenty-sixth Street, you know."

The young man smiled with a pathetic quizzicality. "Now, doctor," he
said, reproachfully, "there's no use in going over that ground again. I
made the terms of the sale perfectly plain, and there can be no
deviation from them."

"Well, if that's your last word," retorted the unsuccessful bidder,
"I'll say good-evening."

He turned to Indiman, who stood at his elbow. "A fakir," he growled,
disgustedly. "Now, I'll leave it to you, sir."

"If you will acquaint me with the essential particulars," said Indiman,
"I shall be most happy to pronounce upon them."

"In two words. This cheap josher has been offering to sell himself, out
and out, to the highest bidder. I make him a cash offer and he takes
water."

"Pardon me," interrupted the young man in evening dress, "but your bid
is plainly for what the students in medical colleges call a 'subject.'
Now, I expressly disclaimed any intention of terminating my material
existence at any fixed period in the future. On the contrary, it is for
the purpose of prolonging my life that I am driven to this
extraordinary procedure. It is myself, my talents, and my services of
which I desire to dispose. My skull, in which you seem to take such an
interest, goes, of course, with the bargain. But I do not guarantee
immediate delivery."

"Your services," sneered the student of medicine. "May I inquire into
their nature and nominal cash valuation?"

"I am an experienced leader of the cotillon," answered the young man in
evening clothes, with a sweet and serious dignity.

"Umph!"

"I play a fair hand at Bridge, and have an unexceptionable eye for
matching worsteds."

"G-r-r!"

"That about sums up my list of accomplishments, but I dare say that I
could learn to dig, for I have my full complement of limbs. Finally, a
rare and pretty talent for losing money and a penchant for the unlucky
side of everything."

"Well, gentlemen," declared the student of medicine, with a snort,
"it's quite evident that we're all playing the fool together. I wish
you a very good-evening, and the devil take all crawfishers." And with
that he marched off, evidently in high dudgeon. A little ripple of
laughter swept over the upturned faces of the crowd. "One dollar,"
repeated the young man, his voice full of a polite weariness. "Do I
hear no other bid? I offer myself, a human chattel, at absolute sale;
no reservations; warranted sound and kind; no objection to the country;
not afraid of the Elevated railway."

"Five dollars," said a voice at the rear, and a short, stout man, with
little, black, beadlike eyes, held up his hand to identify his bid.
"Joe Bardi," said a man to his neighbor. Both turned interestedly.

"And who is Joe Bardi?" inquired Indiman, blandly.

"Business of shipping sailors. There's big money in it, they say."

"Ah, yes, a crimp--isn't that what they call them?"

"Right you are, mister. A hard one, too. It'll be a sharp man that does
for old Joe Bardi."

"Five dollars," came again from the squat figure with its ratlike eyes,
and the young man in evening dress paled a little. He had over-heard
the colloquy between Indiman and the native Abingdonian, and it is
difficult to regard with equanimity the prospect of a trip before the
mast--to China, let us say. In an American ship, too, more shame to us
that it must be said.

But the young man was thoroughbred. He had sat down to play a desperate
game with Fortune, and he could not withdraw with the cards on the
table.

"Five dollars," he repeated, mechanically. "Five dollars. What am I
offered? Five dollars."

"Want me to buy you dat, Mame?" said a half-grown boy of the
unmistakable tough type. "Whatjer soy? Five cases for dat mug! And
Tuesday ain't bargain-day, nuther."

"Well, it looks like thirty cents," said Mame, critically. "In Chinese
money, too--thirty yen-yen. What you say, John?" The crowd laughed
again.

"Five dollars."

"Five dollars," repeated the young man, and there were little drops of
sweat on the broad, fair forehead. "Five dollars, five dollars. Do I
hear no other bid? Five dollars--going--going--"

"Six."

It was Indiman who spoke, and this time the crowd gaped in good
earnest. An indescribable emotion possessed for an instant the face of
the young man in evening clothes. Then he fell back upon his first
manner, half-petulant, half-mocking. "Six dollars I am bid," he
announced, briskly, and looked straight at the shipping agent.

Joe Bardi hesitated. "And a half," he said, tentatively, as an angler
who feels the mouth of the fish that he fears may be insecurely hooked.

Indiman capped the bid promptly. "Seven dollars," he said.

The crimp scowled. "Make it eight," he retorted.

"Ten."

The Italian hesitated again. This had the appearance of a contest, and
he was not of the sort who love a fight for its own sake. But his
cupidity had been powerfully aroused. There was a pretty profit in
advance money to be made if he could get this young fool's signature on
the ship's papers of the Southern Cross, outward bound for Shanghai, on
the morrow. He must make at least another try. It might be that the
intrusive stranger from the silk-stocking district was only amusing
himself and would presently withdraw.

"Twelve," he said, and "fifteen," answered Indiman.

The crowd laughed, and Joe Bardi's vanity was sorely touched. It was
not pleasant to be badgered in this unseemly manner while engaged in
beating one's own preserves. Discretion forsook him forthwith.

"Twenty-five," he bellowed.

"Fifty."

"A hundred, and be damned to you!"

"Two hundred."

There was a pause; the crowd held its breath in silent and joyous
expectancy. Joe Bardi passed a hand over his wet forehead and pulled
irresolutely upon his cigar. A severe-looking old man expressed his
entire disapproval of the proceedings. "It's against the Constitution,"
he said, loudly. "How about the Fourteenth Amendment? Well, the number
doesn't matter anyway. Officer, I call upon you to stop this unlawful
and outrageous farce. A human being selling himself on the auction
block! The slave-market set up again in this Christian city of New
York! It's a crime against the Constitution."

But the policeman was a prudent person, and as yet he had seen no cause
to interfere. The proceedings were unusual, no doubt, and they might be
against the Constitution; he wouldn't like to say. It was none of his
business anyway; HE went by the code.

"Bah!" snorted the old gentleman, and rushed away to find a city
magistrate.

"Two hundred dollars," repeated the young man in evening clothes. "Two
hundred dollars. What am I bid? Going, going--"

The shipping agent made a hasty mental calculation--there was no profit
in the transaction at anything over his last bid of an even hundred.
But he was tempted to go a little further and run up the price on his
adversary, thus punishing him for interfering in a man's private
business. Very good, but suppose the stranger suddenly refused to
follow the lead; then it would be Joe Bardi himself who would be
mulcted. Revenge would be sweet, but it was too dangerous; he would
stop where he was.

"Two hundred, two hundred--going, going--" The crowd began to banter
the crimp.

"Lift her again, Joe," called out one voice. "Open up that barrel of
plunks you've got stored away in your cellar," exhorted another
counsellor. "A nice, white slave--that's what you're needing in your
business," advised a third. But Joe Bardi kept his eyes on the ground
and said nothing.

"Gone," said the young man in evening clothes.

Indiman took four fifty-dollar bills from his wallet and handed them to
the young man. The latter glanced at the notes and stuffed them
carelessly into his waistcoat-pocket. Then, turning to Indiman:

"Sir," he said, with a profound seriousness, "I am now your property.
Ah! Pardon me--"

Like a cat he had sprung between Indiman and the crimp. With a
dexterous upward fling of his arm the knife in the Italian's hand went
spinning into the air. This was something that came within the
policeman's accustomed sphere, and he took immediate charge of Mr. Joe
Bardi. It was all done in a most methodical manner, and ten minutes
later we were free to depart. A "cruiser" cab rattled by and the three
of us squeezed in.

"To the Utinam Club," ordered Indiman.

Seated at a table in the big dining-room of the club, we drank a formal
cocktail to our better acquaintance.

"But I am afraid that you have made a bad bargain," said the young man
to Indiman.

"Frankly, now, I doubt if I can be made to pay even three per cent on
the investment. That's no better than a government bond and not half so
safe."

I have already collected one satisfactory dividend," said Indiman,
courteously. "That was cleverly done--to force the knife out of his
hand and into the air."

"It's a part of the Japanese science of defence without weapons," said
the youth, blushing ingenuously. "Jiu-jitsu, you know. I took some
lessons of a chap in Tokio."

"Moreover, there is your story," continued Indiman. "Will you favor me
with some particulars regarding yourself and the circumstances leading
up to our late meeting? The situation was an unusual one, and the
explanation should be interesting."

"On the contrary," answered the young man, with a faint smile, "my
narrative is of the most commonplace character imaginable, save only
for the final chapter. But judge for yourself.

"My name is Luke Harding, and, so far as I know, I have not a single
blood relation living--at least, none nearer than a third cousin. Two
years ago I inherited my paternal estate. It was too small to support
me in the manner of life to which I had been accustomed, and at the
same time it was large enough to effectually deaden any inclination
towards real work. As an inevitable consequent, I became a speculator.
Little by little my fortune has disappeared in the abyss of stock
gambling; now it is gone entirely. To add to my misfortunes, my
apartments were entered last night by burglars and literally cleaned
out. I must have been drugged, for when I awoke this morning, with a
bad headache, I could remember nothing of what had happened; there were
only results to speak for themselves. The loot had been complete; the
scoundrels had even carried off my ordinary garments, leaving me--what
exquisite irony!--only this suit of evening clothes wherewith to cover
my nakedness. Being somewhat sensitive to the proprieties, I was
obliged to remain within doors until darkness fell, and I spent the
time meditating upon my future course of action. As I have said, I have
no relatives to whom I could apply, and my friends had already taxed
themselves beyond reason in my behalf. It was clear, then, that I was
born unlucky, and I concluded that I had no longer any right to a
separate and independent existence. To one of my temperament suicide is
a difficult proposition. Finally, I lit upon the idea which you have
just witnessed in execution. A healthy, intelligent young man--surely
there must be some market for his exclusive services? Fortunes used to
be made in the African slave-trade.

"It only remains to add that I immediately started to realize upon
these reasonable expectations. I went to the plaza at Fifty-ninth
Street and Fifth Avenue and asked for bids. Unfortunately, no one
seemed to take me seriously, and a policeman obliged me to move on. I
had the same disheartening experience in front of Delmonico's and again
in the Turkish room of the Waldorf-Astoria. It is August, you know, and
the town is empty, but I was a bargain; I can say that without
affectation. Merely to have bought me on speculation, with the idea of
unloading on one of the Adirondack or White mountain hotel resorts--it
would have been impossible to lose. But I could not get a bid, and so I
shifted along down-town--Madison Square, Union Square, then westward by
Jefferson Market and West Tenth Street. Ever edging a little closer to
the river, you observe, and yet, upon my honor, I was not conscious of
any definite volition in the matter; it was as though some one were
gently pushing me along. Then Abingdon Square and your entrance upon
the boards of my little drama--you and Mr. Bardi. Gentlemen, I thank
you for your attention."

"I should say, Thorp," said Indiman, "that Mr. Harding is well
qualified for membership in the Utinam Club. Will you put him up and
I'll second him? The club," he added, by way of explanation to our
guest, "is an association of the unsuccessful in life--the
non-strenuous, the incapable--above all, the unlucky."

"Rest assured that my eligibility is beyond question," answered Mr.
Harding, with a smile. "In a society where misfortune confers a certain
cachet I may confidently expect to attain distinction."

"Do you really consider yourself an abnormally unlucky person?" said
Indiman, seriously. "I have a reason for asking."

"Upon my soul," returned the young man, warmly. "I verily believe that
I have a genius for getting on the wrong side of things. If I should
wager you that I am alive at this moment there would be a bolt out of
the blue before the money could be paid over."

A heavily built man of elderly appearance entered the dining-hall. He
was accompanied by a friend who might be a banker or broker. The pair
picked out a table on the opposite side of the room and immediately
plunged into earnest conversation, their heads close together and
speaking in guarded undertones.

"The gentleman with the gray hair," said young Mr. Harding, eagerly,
"that is Senator Morrison, chairman of the committee on foreign
relations. He must be just in from Washington. Congress, you know, is
in extra session."

"Ah, yes; an able man," said Indiman, politely.

"He would know--he would know," muttered Harding, disjointedly. His
burning gaze fixed itself upon the two men at the distant table, as
though by sheer will-power he would surprise the secret of their
whispering lips. "He must--he does know."

"What?" asked Indiman.

"Man, man, it's a matter of millions! Panama Trading Company common
stock is quoted at 70, and everything depends upon the passage by the
Senate of the canal treaty. The committee must have come to a decision,
and Morrison knows. I tell you he knows--he knows. One word--it would
be enough--Wall Street--Panama common--"

Indiman did not answer; he seemed preoccupied, indifferent even, his
chair pushed back from the table and his eyes half closed. Let me
explain that the small side-tables in the Utinam Club dining-room are
not set flush against the wall, as is usually the case, but at some
little distance from it. Consequently, when there is a party of three
at a table, one man sits on the inside with his back to the wall, a
sensible arrangement in that it allows the waiter free access by the
unoccupied outer side of the table. It so happened that Indiman had
this inside seat.

Harding's lips moved mechanically. "The treaty, the treaty!" he
repeated again and again. "The committee reports to-morrow; the Senate
is certain to act upon its recommendation. If I only knew!"

The conference at the other table was a brief one; its continuance had
been measured by the consumption, on the part of the Senator, of a
couple of biscuits and a glass of spirits-and-water. The two men rose
and left the dining-room.

"Of course you are going back to-night, Senator," said the younger man
as they passed our table.

"At midnight. A hard trip."

"But a profitable one; don't forget that." They laughed and walked on.

For a little while we sat in silence over our cheese and salad. Then
Indiman spoke up, suddenly:

"Mr. Harding."

The young man looked at him dully.

"The story of your persistent ill-fortune has interested me. But I find
it difficult to believe in the consistency of bad luck; it must change
sooner or later."

"Not for me," answered the young man, with quick conviction.

"I have a fancy to put that to the test. Take this card to my
brokers--you know them, Sandford & Sands, of New Street. I have
instructed them to place at your disposal a credit of one hundred
thousand dollars. You will be at their office to-morrow morning, and at
precisely ten o'clock you will receive from me a sealed communication
containing certain information upon which you can rely absolutely. Use
your credit according to your best judgment, and report the results to
me at eight o'clock to-morrow evening. The address is on the card, and
you will dine with me."

"I thank you," said the young man, simply. "If such a thing were
possible--" He stopped and shook his head.

"Nonsense!" said Indiman, bluffly. "You must believe in yourself, man;
it is the first requisite for success. To-morrow evening at eight,
then."

Sitting over a final cigar in Indiman's library, he made me a sharer in
the mystery. "It is simply that the canal treaty will be reported
unfavorably to-morrow by the committee, and consequently it will fail
to pass the Senate. How do I know? I heard it from Senator Morrison's
own lips."

"Well?"

"As you know, the dining-hall of the Utinam Club is of a circular
shape, and it happens to possess certain peculiar acoustic properties.
In other words, it is a whispering-gallery, and it so chanced that
Senator Morrison sat at one of the definite points--they call them
vocal foci, I think--and I at the other. That is the whole story."

"You are quite sure--there can be no mistake?"

"Not the slightest doubt. The man with Morrison is a broker, and he has
the Senator's order to sell ten thousand Panama common at the market
to-morrow. When the news of the treaty's failure to pass reaches Wall
Street, by the regular channels, the stock will break sharply and the
profits on the deal should be enormous. No wonder that Senator
Morrison's flying trip to New York should be worth the taking."

"And Harding?"

"It remains to be proven whether the fault lies in the man himself or
in his alleged bad luck. I am sending him the bare fact as to the canal
bill's fate, and it is for him to seize the skirts of chance. I'll
write the note now and deliver it at the office myself in the morning.
Then we will see."

"We will see," I echoed, and we parted for the night.

At one o'clock the following afternoon Indiman and I stood watching the
ticker in an up-town broker's office.

"The Senate rejects the canal treaty," read out Indiman. "Now for the
next quotation of Panama common; the last sale was at 70 1/2. Will you
take the tape, Mr. Barnes?"

There was an instant's pause in the click-click of the instrument, the
heart-gripping lull before the breaking of the tempest. Then the wheels
began to revolve again, and the white tape, our modern thread of the
Norns, sped through the twitching fingers of the young chap to whom
Indiman had yielded place.

"Five hundred Pan. com., 68," he read out. "One thousand, 67 1/2; four
hundred, 67; two thousand, 65. I guess I've seen enough, gentlemen;
it's my--my finish." He gulped down something in his throat and walked
over to the water-cooler,

"And enough for us," whispered Indiman. "Let us go."

"It's the way of the world," I philosophized as we gained the street.
"One man up and another down. He is young; he will have his chance
again."

"It is Harding's day," said Indiman.

Panama common had closed at 50, a drop of twenty points; there was a
fortune to be made in selling even a few thousand shares short of the
market. It was Harding's day, indeed.

Eight o'clock and Indiman and I sat awaiting his coming. The electric
bell rang sharply, and Bolder ushered in our protege. He came forward,
shook hands, accepted a cigar, and sat down.

"You received my note?" said Indiman.

"Yes."

"What did you do?"

"I bought five thousand Pan. com. at 70."

"Oh, the deuce!" and Indiman stared blankly at his guest.

"You see, it's no use--" began the young man, apologetically, but
Indiman cut him short.

"No use! And with my message in your hand before the market opened--the
exclusive, the absolute information--"

"Here it is," said Mr. Harding, and handed Indiman his own note. The
latter glanced at the contents, and suddenly his face changed.

"Read that, Thorp," he said, and tossed me the message. The letter
contained these words:

"The canal treaty will pass the Senate. Use your own judgment."

"In some inexplicable absence of mind I left out the all-important
'not,'" said Indiman, ruefully, "and it has cost me one hundred
thousand dollars. Mr. Harding, I beg your pardon. You are the
unluckiest man alive," and he went on to tell him of the
whispering-gallery and of the secret obtained in manner so
extraordinary. "And then, through my stupidity, worse than wasted," he
concluded. "I can't understand it; I read that note through twice
before I sealed it up. It is incredible."

"No, it is my luck," said young Mr. Harding, and took a fresh cigar.
"Or, rather, your luck," he corrected himself, smilingly. "Have you
forgotten that I am now your property?"

"God forbid!" said Indiman, hastily. "I give you back
yourself--consideration of one dollar. You're a witness, Thorp. And now
shall we go in to dinner?"

A position in a wholesale business house was secured for young Mr.
Harding, and for a month or two he seemed to be doing very well. Then
one day he resigned; a letter to Indiman gave the explanation.

"He's going to marry a wealthy widow," read out Indiman. "They sail on
the Lucania next Saturday."

"Then luck has turned for him," I said, heartily. "I'm glad of it."

"Hym!" said Indiman. "Perhaps so."

From the street came the sound of a hand-organ. It was playing Verdi's
"Celeste Aida," and so lovely is the aria that I could have listened to
it with pleasure, even when thus ground out mechanically. But,
unfortunately, an atrocious mistake had been made in the preparation of
the music cylinder. In the original the final note of the first two
bars is F natural, while in the third bar the tonality is raised and
the F becomes F sharp. The transcriber had failed to make this change,
and so had lost the uplifting effect of the sharped F. All the life and
color of the phrase had been destroyed, and the result was intolerable.

I fished out a quarter and rang for Bolder. "Send him away," I said,
somewhat impatiently.

The servant returned looking puzzled. "The organ-grinder said I was to
give this to the gentleman," he said, and handed me a small object. It
was a brass baggage-check issued by the New York Central Railway, from
Cleveland to New York, and bore the number 18329. I passed it to
Indiman, ran to the window, and looked out. But the organ-grinder was
gone.




IX

The Brass Baggage-Check


It is not every day in the week that a hand-organ plays "Celeste Aida"
under one's window with an F natural in the third bar where the music
rightfully calls for F sharp. Nor is it usual to send out a quarter of
a dollar to the man as an inducement for him to retire, and then to
receive in return a New York Central baggage-check numbered 18329, and
reading from Cleveland to New York. Esper Indiman and I exchanged
smiles.

"This looks like the real thing," said my friend. "My dear Thorp, there
must be some rare element in your chemical make-up that serves to
precipitate these delightful mysteries. Adventures fairly flock about
us. We shall have to screen the doors and windows or be overwhelmed.
Seriously, I am infinitely obliged to you, for I had started on my
eleventh game of solitaire, and was beginning to feel a trifle bored.
But now--now there is something doing, as Mr. Devery would remark. Let
us start the ball rolling by giving Bolder the third degree."

Bolder, recalled, was disposed to be cheerfully communicable. Certainly
he would know the man again; he had a good look at him. The sun was
shining brightly, and it had fallen full on the fellow's face.

"Describe him, then," said Indiman, note-book in hand.

Put to the test, Bolder was not so good a witness as we had hoped for;
he wandered and grew confused in his statements. Light hair? Yes, it
might have been that--though, now that he thought of it, the shade was
rather on the darkish order. An old man? Well, not noticeably so;
perhaps thirty-five or a little younger.

"Or a little older--say fifty-five?"

"Well, it might have been fifty-five, sir. I couldn't swear to it
exactly."

"That will do, Bolder," said Indiman, and our witness retired abashed.

"Check number one," commented Indiman. "Suppose we try the Grand
Central now. We won't take out the carriage; the day is fine and I want
the walk."

It was a beautiful morning in August, cool and clear, and we strode
along briskly. A hand-organ began playing in a side street, and we
stopped to listen. "It's the same aria," I said, excitedly--"'Celeste
Aida.' What tremendous luck! No, it isn't; deuce take it!" I went on,
dejectedly.

"But you just said it was the same," persisted Indiman.

"With a difference," I hastened to explain. Now, Indiman is not
musical, and I had some trouble in convincing him that within the
compass of a semitone a veritable gulf may yawn. This particular organ
played the phrase in the third bar correctly--F sharp and not F
natural--and consequently it could not be the same instrument that had
vexed my ears half an hour ago at No. 4020 Madison Avenue.

"There is a real difference, then?" said Indiman, thoughtfully. "One
that you would recognize again?"

"At any place or time," I answered, confidently. "It is an absolute
means of identification, quite as much so as a glass eye would be in a
man's face."

"Very good. We'll find that hand-organ, then, if we have to go through
'Little Italy' with a drag-net. How beautifully the problem is working
out!--almost too beautifully."

At the incoming baggage-room Indiman presented the check numbered
18329. A porter appeared with a large trunk loaded on a truck. "City
transfer?" he asked.

"No, I'll take it with me," said Indiman. "Thorp, will you get a hack."

We were about to drive off, and I felt for my match-box. Provoking! I
must have left it at home, and I wanted a cigarette. "One moment," I
called, and jumped out, having caught sight of Ellison, who had been
with me in college. He was hurrying into the station. I should be glad
to have a word with him and secure a match at the same time. But
somehow I missed him in making my way through the swinging doors.
Ellison was nowhere to be seen, and I had to content myself with
getting a light at the cigar counter. I went back to the carriage and
climbed in.

"It was Ellison," I explained. "A good chap, and I should have liked to
meet him."

"Some other time, perhaps," said Indiman, politely, and we drove off.

"So you've got it," I said, staring up at the trunk that occupied the
box at the hackman's 

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